Santa Fe Church Forgives Entire State of New Mexico Medical Debt

[kpete]

A wonderful story from a few days ago:

St. Bede's Episcopal Church, Santa Fe, NM
Posted Jul 9, 2021

St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Santa Fe, NM is reaching out to families crushed by medical debt through a big gift and a big partnership. Through donations, the parish wiped out nearly $1.4 million of medical debt for 782 households.

St. Bede’s worked with RIP Medical Debt, a well-respected organization that identifies households whose incomes are less than twice the poverty level or are insolvent, and owe medical debt. Then they buy the debt at a fraction of face value (as a collection agency otherwise would) and pay it off using donations from people such as us. Furthermore, they write the affected parties a letter telling them they no longer owe the debt, and equally important, contact credit agencies to verify the debt has been paid, clearing the debtor’s credit history. The letter recipients receive identifies St. Bede’s as the donor.

St. Bede’s grant of $15,000 cleared $1,380,119.87 in medical debt for the families who live in New Mexico and parts of Arizona. That includes all the available debt in New Mexico, plus Apache, Gila, Graham, Mohave, Navajo, and part of Maricopa County in Arizona–782 households in all. Said the Rev’d Catherine Volland “I don’t know if this parish has ever funded a program with such a great impact. We were able to do it because every week we set aside 10% of donations to the church for outreach. Prioritizing service to others is our gospel imperative.”.

782 families will learn what it’s like to unexpectedly get a letter that says “St. Bede’s Episcopal Church has paid off the medical debt you have been struggling with for the past number of years. No strings attached.” One recipient from a recent round of payments responded to their letter saying “ I was having a hard time trying to figure out how I was going to pay all this amount of money and it’s not been easy finding a job especially when you have two kids and with this pandemic going on. It has really been a very hard year for me and for everyone. I would love to thank personally that special person that helped me with my account. I am so thankful and I just want to say God bless you always.”.

............

MORE:
https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/pressreleases/santa-fe-church-forgives-entire-state-of-new-mexico-medical-debt/

[abqtommy]

1. So some religionists do good/productive things! Thanks for letting us know.

[lagomorph777]

9. Yeah, it restores a bit of respect from me.

[DFW]

2. Wow! A Christian church practicing Christian charity

Giving and asking nothing in return.

Here is a rare case of Christians that Gandhi would have approved of. You can tell by their work that they have nothing to do with the overtly political mega churches in Texas.

[Duppers]

3. Yes, very rare.

This old atheist applauds them.

[crickets]

11. +1

[Nittersing]

4. RIP Medical Debt was founded by two former debt collection executives

From the article:

"Established in 2014, RIP Medical Debt was founded by two former debt collection executives. Their nonprofit organization uses donations to buy large portfolios of medical debt at a fraction of its value, then forgive significant amounts of the debt. In 2020, the organization abolished $1.7 billion in debt for over 830,000 people."

Just thought the background was interesting.

https://ripmedicaldebt.org/about/

[MarineCombatEngineer]

6. Thanks for the link.

I'm going to donate generously to them, this is a truly worthy cause and I urge more DUer"s to donate if they can afford it.

[Hugin]

5. Nice.

[Wounded Bear]

7. K & R...for visibility...nt

[exboyfil]

8. For tax purposes is this treated as income?

And if it is, is it at the original debt value or the marked down value?


I hope it isn't treated as income. This is a great mission.

[Me.]

10. I Knew It Couldn't Be The Catholic Church