Hickory Medical Debt is suspending it Campaign for now...

We have exciting news for you regarding medical debt in our region.

Governor Cooper announced this week that the NC Department of Health and Human Services is offering $4 billion to North Carolina hospital systems to forgive medical debt up to 10 years old in exchange for boosting federal funding. The package of incentives and conditions has many other features pertaining to reducing medical debt in North Carolina. You can read about them in the articles below. Our partner, Undue Medical Debt, has been and will be a major player in this initiative, which will continue through 2025 and beyond. 

North Carolina is the only state where this type of medical reform is taking place. Efforts by groups like ours statewide have been a significant factor in helping work like this to happen. 

Given the fact that hospital systems will be working at the state level in forgiving huge amounts of medical debt, we will need to pause our efforts to fundraise locally. We will follow this initiative for the next year or so, in communication with Undue Medical Debt, and if the initiative is successful, which we expect it to be, focus our energies elsewhere in blessing our region.

We already have ideas as to how we may refocus our efforts. Thank you so much for your participation up to this point. We have laid wonderful groundwork for the work of the Kingdom in our area. If you would like to continue to be involved with our efforts, we would be honored to have you. We’ll check back with you in the coming months. 

Blessings,

Chris Simmons

Steve Clark

Marc Bailey