35,007 people from Southwest Virginia received a letter recently, informing them that their medical debt had been erased, after a nonprofit in the New River Valley paid off their bills.
This is the third time The Secular Society purchased medical debt. Two years ago, they paid off $12 million. This year, they erased $51 million. The group purchased the debt in bulk.
“The way that it’s purchased is at a discounted rate, sometimes penny to the dollar of true debt value,” explained Rachel Helton, a spokesperson for The Secular Society, a nonprofit based in Blacksburg. She said people cannot apply to their organization to have their debt erased. Instead, The Secular Society worked with a third-party organization, called Undue Medical Debt, who finds individuals who owe money to collection agencies or medical systems…