TOPEKA — The Rev. Traci Blackmon counts each modest contribution to an ambitious United Church of Christ program aiding people trapped by medical debt in Kansas and Oklahoma as a gospel-infused demand for justice.
Indeed, the pastor said, $5.2 million in health care debt held by more than 3,200 households in these two states was forgiven at this Thanksgiving holiday through the magnanimity of UCC congregations. This emancipating stride offers recipients an opportunity to revise their outlook on life, she said.
Blackmon said they know filling a prescription or making a clinic appointment isn’t wishful thinking. Freedom from the onus of impossible debt means deferred dreams of owning a car, finishing school or qualifying for a home loan are not fantasy.
“This effort on behalf of the United Church of Christ is not solely about charity and it is certainly not so we can pat ourselves on the back,” said Blackmon, associate general minister in UCC’s Kansas-Oklahoma conference. “It is our way of calling attention to a justice issue that runs deep in the fabric of our United States.”
“The purpose is to sound the alarm that we cannot be a country of prosperity, a country of more than enough, and be silent about those who suffer among us. The rising cost of health care has made living a healthy life prohibitive for too many,” she said.
United Church of Christ has 40 congregations in Kansas and 13 in Oklahoma with about 7,000 members. Collectively, these mostly small churches and the UCC national ministry raised $40,000 to purchase medical debt, sometimes at pennies on the dollar, from the New York-based nonprofit RIP Medical Debt.
In October, the transaction eliminated $5.2 million in health-related debt in 3,234 households. The average amount forgiven in Oklahoma and Kansas was $1,612.
Qualifying debtors had to earn less than two times the federal poverty level; in financial hardship, with out-of-pocket expenses amounting to 5% or more of their annual income; or facing insolvency, with debts greater than assets.
The churches don’t know the identity of people whose debt was erased. RIP Medical Debt is responsible for sending letters to recipients naming the congregations and organizations that help make the forgiveness possible.
The letter’s core: “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here. And most importantly, you are beloved by God and your debt has been forgiven.”
Lori Herpich, a member of Plymouth Congregational Church in Lawrence, said she’s familiar with the anxiety-inducing burden of lingering health care bills. It’s a predicament that can sneak up on people and frequently goes unnoticed by communities, she said. As the bills stack up from month to month, she said, the only option for some is bankruptcy.
“I definitely know what it’s like to have medical debt,” Herpich said. “A few years ago, I had to have multiple surgeries and the bills that came from them were just huge. It caused stress, it was overwhelming and it seemed like it was never going to end.”
She can imagine the joy of people opening a letter revealing how a cluster of church congregations reached out to them.
“Just knowing that there are families that are going to get contacted, that their debt has been eliminated, that it has been resolved — this is going to be huge, believe me,” Herpich said.
The Rev. Lori Walke, senior pastor of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, said a portion of the congregation’s benevolence fund was donated to the relief project. The image of one-fourth of Oklahoma’s population carrying $1.2 billion in medical debt is to harrowing to ignore, she said.
