I looked up the primary report behind these stories from the Harvard Law School. Yes, in the 2001 study one of several criteria that would qualify a bankruptcy as "medically bankrupt" is having more than $1000 of uncovered medical expenses in the prior two years. I agree that this is a bit too open and the authors do too. They changed the criterion to >$5000 for 2007 other than for the time trend analysis. This only changed the 2007 numbers 7%. Just as importantly, the number rose from
46% to 69%.The numbers will never be exact and will always be disputed. But I think the result of this study is still valid.