JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Few issues are more divisive than healthcare. Politicians use that to great effect. But it turns out Americans agree on a lot when it comes to healthcare. That is the subject of a new project with our partner, KFF Health News. It's a series called Common Ground. Reporter Noam Levey visited a church in North Carolina.
NOAM LEVEY: There are some issues, like immigration or student loans, too divisive to unite the members of Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem.
JOHN JACKMAN: We've got quite a spread of political beliefs. It's definitely a purple congregation.
LEVEY: That's Reverend John Jackman. He leads this 114-year-old church. It's near the city's old textile mills. Four years ago, he suggested a campaign to pay off medical debt for people in the wider Winston-Salem community.
JACKMAN: This is the easiest money I've ever raised. All I do is tell people what we're doing, and they write me a check.
LEVEY: Congregation member Catherine Coe says there's a reason for that. She works in the accounting department at a big hospital system.
CATHERINE COE: I see people going into debt every minute of every day. We're all just one medical bill away from financial ruin.
LEVEY: Coe describes herself as a conservative. She voted for President Trump. Terri Mabe is on the other side of the nation's political divide. She says she can't stand the president. But she's also seen medical debt up close. She used to work on construction jobs.
TERRI MABE: In between projects, you are, a lot of times, without a job. Then you get sick. Next thing you know, you owe 5,000, $10,000. Then you're like, I can't pay it. What do I do now?
LEVEY: Nationwide, about a hundred million people have some kind of healthcare debt. But at the church, it's not just that everyone knows someone who's been in debt. The church members, no matter their politics, seem to agree there's something broken about a system that pushes people into debt if they get sick. Paul Sluder is one. He used to work for a credit union and did a lot of debt collecting. Most people, he says, wanted to pay but couldn't.
PAUL SLUDER: It's incredibly just unfair. I think the system's out of whack.
LEVEY: Polls suggests there's a lot of common ground around medical debt. In a recent survey for the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, more than 75% of Republicans and Democrats agreed patients' wages shouldn't be garnished to pay medical bills. Reverend Jackman says there's a part for everyone to play.
JACKMAN: One of our ideas is that we cannot fix everything, but we have to fix what we can in the place where we're planted.
LEVEY: When the debt campaign ended earlier this year, Jackman led a special ceremony at the church. He stands before the congregation and holds up a piece of paper with a long list of names.
JACKMAN: On this day of Jubilee, we act to forgive the debts of many of our neighbors as God has forgiven our debts.
LEVEY: Each name on the list belongs to someone whose debt the church has purchased and retired. Jackman flicks on a lighter and holds the yellow flame under the paper.
JACKMAN: We are going to burn this list of 1,631 debts for our people.
LEVEY: Kids from a scouting group stand by with confetti poppers.
JACKMAN: Please stand.
(APPLAUSE)
JACKMAN: Go ahead.
(SOUNDBITE OF ORGAN PLAYING)
LEVEY: The music and the singing seem to celebrate something else too - the simple act of working together. After spaghetti in the church basement, I caught up with Cynthia Tesh.
CYNTHIA TESH: There's just so much division, so much anger. We need to look out for one another. If we start looking out for one another, things will change. If we start considering other people and not just ourselves, things will change.
LEVEY: The congregation is already planning its next campaign. In Winston-Salem, I'm Noam Levey.
(SOUNDBITE OF HERMANOS GUTIERREZ'S "AMAR Y VIVIR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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