(1) Medical debt is unique, and Americans do not choose when accidents happen or when illness strikes.
(2) Medical debt collection issues affect both insured and uninsured consumers.
(3) 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.
(4) Nevertheless, medical debt that has been completely paid off or settled can significantly damage a consumer’s credit score for years.
(5) As a result, consumers can be denied credit or pay higher interest rates when buying a home or obtaining a credit card.
(6) 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.
(7) In fact, medical bills account for more than half of all non-credit related collection actions reported to consumer credit reporting agencies.
(8) The issue of medical debt affects millions.
(9) According to the Commonwealth Fund, medical bill problems or accrued medical debt affects roughly 72,000,000 working-age adults in America.
(10) For 2007, 28,000,000 working-age American adults were contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills.
(b) 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.
U.S. Congress - Text of H.R.3421 as Referred in Senate Medical Debt Relief Act of 2010
