In an impactful win by Central Florida Jobs With Justice (a coalition of labor and social advocacy groups), Orange County government this year wiped out more than $472.5 million in medical debt owed by over 310,000 local residents, in partnership with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt. The county initiative, approved by the Orange County Commission last August, was funded by federal relief funds allocated to the county during the COVID-19 pandemic under the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). All in all, this has cost the county just $3 million of the roughly $270 million ARPA dollars, which was then leveraged by Undue Medical Debt to erase the debt for pennies on the dollar.
This article appears in Best of Orlando (R) 2025.