Winston-Salem church helps buy and forgive millions in medical debt for Wake County households

A Winston-Salem church, working with other congregations, has purchased and forgiven $6.5 million in medical debt owed by lower-income families in Wake County impacting nearly 3,000 households.

Trinity Moravian Church started its Debt Jubilee Project in 2022 to assist families with medical bills in North Carolina. Rev. John Jackman says it's done anonymously so that the congregation never knows who exactly is receiving help.

"We don't have to know, we don't have to ever get a thank you, because that's not what it's about," Jackman says. "It's about trying to fix something that we know is broken."

The church works with New York-based nonprofit RIP Medical Debt, to purchase the debt for less than a penny on the dollar, similar to the way a third-party collector would, on the open market. But instead of collecting it, they forgive it.

Jackman says everybody knows someone who's had a long hospital stay, or has large bills they may never be able to pay.

"Fixing the broken medical health care financial system is way beyond my pay grade," he says. "But this is something we can do, so this is what we're doing."

Trinity Moravian Church has helped purchase a total of more than $14 million in debt for households since first starting the initiative.