Church in small Indiana town wipes out $4.1M in medical debt for 3,000 families

By Haley Miller

On March 6, 2024

A church in Odon, Indiana, helped wipe out $4.1 million in medical debt for nearly 3,000 southwest Indiana families — more than double the population of the congregation’s own town.

“God can do anything,” Micah Stephen, Odon Christian Church senior minister, said. “Even a small church in rural Indiana … and yet God’s using a church of 400 people to affect so many.”

Odon Christian Church, a nondenominational congregation about an hour southwest of Bloomington, partnered with the national nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to abolish debts in Daviess, Dubois, Greene, Knox, Lawrence, Martin and Orange counties.

Beneficiaries found letters in their mailboxes the last week in February informing them that their medical debt had been erased.

“You get so caught up in bills that it’s hard to see the forest for the trees,” Stephen said. “We just want to be able to lighten that load.”

Stephen was inspired to launch the campaign in 2023, after his father was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer. His cancer is now dormant.

During his dad’s treatment, Stephen said, he leaned heavily on a worship song that asked, “When did I start to forget all of the great things You did?”

“I preach that,” Stephen said. “That’s my job to preach it, but am I really believing it? [The campaign] grew out of that.”

RIP Medical Debt uses donations to purchase inexpensive bundled debt portfolios that would normally be sold to collection agencies. The nonprofit only buys the debts of people who earn less than four times the federal poverty level or for whom medical debt makes up 5% of annual income.

The nonprofit partners with churches, service groups and other organizations across the country. Since 2014, the organization has erased more than $10 billion in medical debt.

The model means every dollar raised by the church erased around $100 of medical debt. A 2019 campaign by the church wiped out about $2 million.

This time, Stephen said, members of the congregation nearly doubled their contributions.

“I saw people handing me $1,000 like it was nothing,” Stephen said. “That’s incredible.”

One in 12 Americans owed medical debt in 2021, according to data from the Survey of Income and Participation Program. Approximately 3 million people owed medical debt of more than $10,000.

Daniel Lempert, vice president of communications and marketing at RIP Medical Debt, said medical debt is a widespread, structural problem.

“These are debts of necessity,” Lempert said. “This isn’t someone going out and buying a lavish vacation or purchasing a car.”

With the debt paid off, Stephen said, the priority now is making sure people know the letter in their mailbox isn’t a scam. The church encouraged families in the recipient counties not to throw away envelopes labeled “RIP Medical Debt.”

This piece was republished from The Herald-Times.