Winston -Salem church to pay more than $ 2 million medical debt – WFDD

Winston-Salem Church raised funds to forgive about $ 2.5 million in medical debt to families in Central North Carolina.

The Trinity Moravian Church raised more than $ 25,000 as part of its winter campaign to buy and forgive debt. The church has been doing this kind of work for the last three years.

But this time the initiative, which allows the church to buy a dollar debt, came against the backdrop of changes across the country and national.

In January, the Financial Protection Bureau announced that unpaid medical accounts would no longer appear in credit reports. And last year, hospitals in North Carolina signed a state program to facilitate medical debt.

The Trinity Moravian Church of Rev. John Jackman says that his collected is already considering new ways to remain engaged.

“We’ll just have to move a step forward at a time to see what the current environment is to find out what our next step is,” he says. “Whether it continues to buy debt as we have done, or, I think we will make some lobbying about just making sure that politicians have heard the voice of people.”

Jackman says the government program has deleted a lot of debt owned by hospitals that they are initially directed. But the congregation was able to find other bills to forgive outside this system, such as money due to the ambulance and medical practices.

The church will host a debt burning ceremony in its service from 11am on Sunday.