Free Republic

A church in North Carolina has again unburdened thousands of families who were struggling with medical debt, setting their obligations ablaze. Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem bought up and canceled nearly $3.3 million in medical debt belonging to 3,355 families. According to the Dispatch, this is the second year that members of the church have taken part in the Debt Jubilee Project, which assumes past-due medical bills of residents in the area. Through the project, congregants previously purchased $1.65 million of debt, liberating 1,356 people in Forsyth and Davidson Counties. When an individual fails to pay down an outstanding medical...

Two health centers in Michigan and a microhospital in Oklahoma are separately forgiving medical debt to help patients who may be struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Wellston Medical Center and Primary Health Services of Ludington, Mich., will forgive $214,000 in medical debt for thousands of patients, according to 9&10 News, a local news station. The owners said they want to ease financial burdens its patients are facing during the pandemic. In Oklahoma, Tulsa ER & Hospital said it will forgive $2.1 million in outstanding medical debt for patients who received service at the physician-owned microhospital from December 2019 through...

There is at least one issue a divided electorate can come together on this election year: A recent poll finds 90% of those surveyed agreed on the importance of making health care more affordable. Millions of Americans remain uninsured. As Meg Oliver reports in partnership with ProPublica, some people are even going to jail because they're squeezed by a system that's putting new demands on overburdened incomes. Tres and Heather Biggs' son Lane was diagnosed with leukemia when he was five years old. At the same time, Heather suffered seizures from Lyme disease. "We had so many — multiple health...

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders has released a plan to eliminate $81 billion in past-due medical debt and use bankruptcy courts to process other existing and future medical debt. Four things to know: 1. The plan calls for the federal government to negotiate and pay off past-due medical bills in collections that have been reported to credit agencies. 2. The campaign chose $81 billion based on a 2018 Health Affairs study. Researchers found one in six Americans have past-due medical bills on their credit report totaling $81 billion. Fifty-three percent of those bills amount to less than $600 each....

Higher Vision Church in Santa Clarita was among more than a dozen houses of worship nationwide that raised millions to donate to RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit organization that arranges such debt payoffs, according to US News & World Report. In a drive attended by 8,000 people, the church raised $16,000 – wiping out $1.6 million in medical debt. The church, which is located in a shopping center right off the 5 Freeway at the 126, pledged to wipe out $200 in medical debt for every person who attended a service April 18 to 21.