St. Eugene Catholic Church in Oklahoma City is challenging parishes across the country to follow its example after helping abolish more than $6.5 million in medical debt through a partnership with a nonprofit organization.
Father Jim Goins read about the "scourge of medical debt in the country" and decided to do something. About 20 million people — nearly 1 in 12 adults — owe medical debt, and federal data shows Americans owe at least $220?billion in unpaid medical bills, according to the ?Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, an independent project of the Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF that analyzes U.S. healthcare spending.
"It haunts people, haunts their credit reports," Goins told EWTN News. "So I was also praying about that biblical concept of the year of favor, the year of favor from the Lord, how that debts were to be forgiven. Those who were in debt bondage were to be redeemed in that year of favor. Christ, of course, is the year of favor for us. But I wanted to do something on the parish level to address the problem."
Goins discussed the matter with his parish administrator, Sharon Blakely, who located the nonprofit organization Undue Medical Debt, which uses donated dollars to purchase bundles of unpaid medical debt at a fraction of the price from hospitals, health systems, and debt collectors.
Daniel Lempert, Undue's vice president of communications, told EWTN News: "We purchase these debts for pennies on the dollar. We're able to buy these debts so cheaply because they belong to those who are least able to pay — a sign of how broken our healthcare system is."
"My target, my goal, was $10,000 from my parish. I asked them for $10,000. We did 10-bucks Sundays," Goins said. "Everyone throw in 10 bucks, and we'll try to raise this money. It caught fire and they gave us $25,000. So when all was said and done, we were instrumental in abolishing over $6.5 million in medical debt here in central Oklahoma in four counties."
Lempert said: "The amount we pay reflects their value on the existing debt market. The difference is that we flip that market on its head for good and never collect a single penny."
"On average, $1 donated abolishes about $100 of medical debt. That's what allowed St. Eugene's $25,000 gift to erase over $6.5 million," Lempert said about the partnership first reported by local outlet KFOR News.
Blakely said the parish organized the fundraiser around the Fourth of July holiday, calling it "250 years of America, let's do a freedom from medical debt fundraising thing for the Fourth of July."
She said parishioners responded fervently to the idea, sending in donations well after the deadline set at the end of June. "We've had so many parishioners reach out to us telling us how there have been times in their lives where this could have like, totally, like saved them."
"We want to challenge anybody, like anyone, to beat us," Blakely said, calling for parishes across the country to make abolishing medical debt "a friendly competition."
"Beat us, and then when we do it again next summer, we'll try to beat you and let's just try to get rid of medical debt," she said. "When we all help each other, it's really easy to get along in this world when we're all together."
Goins echoed Blakely, adding that if parishes around the country would partner with nonprofits like Undue, the amount of debt that could be abolished would be "staggering."
"I told our crowds, you know, that we're all just one ER visit away from a medical debt. It could happen to any one of us. Any one of us could be bankrupted by medical debt," he said. "It has nothing to do with your character, it has nothing to do whether you're a hard worker or not, whether you're industrious, whether you save or not. It just happens and it ruins people's lives. So that struck a chord."
