Groups like Christ for Kentucky have decided they are obligated to help reduce or eliminate medical debt, especially for residents living in poverty.
Robert Cunningham, director of the group, said unpaid medical bills are a driving factor in personal bankruptcy cases in most counties.
“In Kentucky, it’s about 18%,” Cunningham pointed out. “In the eastern rural Appalachia region, some estimates have it at 33% – one in three – with medical debt in collections.”
Last summer, an initiative led by Kentucky Voices for Health and the group Undue Medical Debt purchased and erased more than $1.2 million of medical debt in Kentucky, affecting more than 1,200 people statewide.
A little more than half of…