IIB
111th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 3421
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 29, 2010
Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
AN ACT
To exclude from consumer credit reports medical debt that has been in collection and has been fully paid or settled, and for other purposes.
Short title
This Act may be cited as the
Medical Debt Relief Act of
2010
.
Findings and Purpose
Findings
The Congress finds the following:
Medical debt is unique, and Americans do not choose when accidents happen or when illness strikes.
Medical debt collection issues affect both insured and uninsured consumers.
According to credit evaluators, medical debt collections are more likely to be in dispute, inconsistently reported, and of questionable value in predicting future payment performance because it is atypical and nonpredictive.
Nevertheless, medical debt that has been completely paid off or settled can significantly damage a consumer’s credit score for years.
As a result, consumers can be denied credit or pay higher interest rates when buying a home or obtaining a credit card.
Healthcare providers are increasingly turning to outside collection agencies to help secure payment from patients and this comes at the expense of the consumer because medical debts are not typically reported unless they become assigned to collections.
In fact, medical bills account for more than half of all non-credit related collection actions reported to consumer credit reporting agencies.
The issue of medical debt affects millions.
According to the Commonwealth Fund, medical bill problems or accrued medical debt affects roughly 72,000,000 working-age adults in America.
For 2007, 28,000,000 working-age American adults were contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills.
Purpose
It is the purpose of this Act to exclude from consumer credit reports medical debt that had been characterized as delinquent, charged off, or debt in collection for credit reporting purposes and has been fully paid or settled.
Amendments to Fair Credit Reporting Act
Medical debt defined
Section 603 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681a) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
Medical debt
The term medical debt
means a debt described
in section
604(g)(1)(C).
.
Exclusion for paid or settled medical debt
Section 605(a) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681c(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
Any information related to a fully paid or settled medical debt that had been characterized as delinquent, charged off, or in collection which, from the date of payment or settlement, antedates the report by more than 45 days.
.
PAYGO budgetary effects
The budgetary effects
of this Act, for the purpose of complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act
of 2010, shall be determined by reference to the latest statement titled
Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation'
for this Act, submitted
for printing in the Congressional Record by the Chairman of the House Budget
Committee, provided that such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on
passage.
Passed the House of Representatives September 29, 2010.
Lorraine C. Miller,
Clerk.