Michigan Amish Community Hosts Fund-Raiser To Pay Medical Bills

An Amish community in Montcalm County, Mich., on May 31 will host the first of two fund-raisers to help pay the medical bills of three local Amish residents, a practice becoming "much more common in Amish communities because of the skyrocketing cost of medical care," the AP/Detroit News reports. The event aims to raise donations to pay for the leukemia treatment of two local Amish children and the open-heart surgery of an Amish bishop. Medical expenses "have become a serious burden" to the approximately 40 Amish families who live in the Montcalm County area, the AP/News reports. Amish people do not believe in buying health insurance or accepting government assistance, maintaining that purchasing health coverage "would make them dependent on large, faceless corporations instead of each other" and would "violate their desire to live a life apart from the rest of the world," the AP/News reports. Instead, the Amish depend on "customary financial help" from the members of their community, according to the AP/News. While Amish communities in other states and Canada have sent money to one Amish family in the village to help pay medical expenses, the Montcalm County community has only been able to pay $27,000 of a total $70,000 in medical bills (AP/Detroit News, 5/28).