These church members disagree on politics. Together they're wiping out medical debt

Kids from a local Scouting group helped the Rev. John Jackman celebrate at Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as the church marked the end of its latest Debt Jubilee Project to buy up and retire medical debt. Allison Lee Isley/KFF Health News hide caption toggle caption Allison Lee Isley/KFF Health News WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Some issues, like immigration or student loans, are too divisive to unite Trinity Moravian Church. "We've got quite a spread of political beliefs," says the Rev. John Jackman, who leads this 114-year-old red-brick church near Winston-Salem's old textile mills. Conservative Republicans sit with liberal Democrats. Supporters of President Trump mix with his fierce critics. "It's definitely a purple congregation," Jackman says. But four years ago, when Jackman suggested a new church mission to alleviate medical debt for residents of the wider Winston-Salem area, there was no dissent. "This is the easiest money I've ever raised," he says. "All I do is tell people what we're doing, and they write me a check." A matter of fairness Few issues have been more politically explosive in recent years than healthcare, pitting Democrats and Republicans in bitter debates over the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and other flash points. Yet moved by the sense that the medical debts their neighbors faced were deeply unfair, members of Trinity Moravian , no matter their politics, rushed to write $25 or $50 checks to pay off the bills. …