H.R. 3421: Medical Debt Relief Act of 2009

[Game Plan]

I'm not sure how many folks know about this bill. It passed the house on 09/29/10 and is now going to the senate for debate. It would make it against the law to show medical collections on your consumer credit report once the bills have been paid or settled.

Text of the Bill

HR 3421 RFS

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


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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.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Medical Debt Relief Act of 2010’.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

(a) Findings- The Congress finds the following:

(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.

SEC. 3. AMENDMENTS TO FAIR CREDIT REPORTING ACT.

(a) 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:

‘(z) Medical Debt- The term ‘medical debt’ means a debt described in section 604(g)(1)(C).’.

(b) 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:

‘(7) 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.’.

SEC. 4. 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.

Attest:

LORRAINE C. MILLER,

Clerk.

[chane]

Any news on this?

[Hal Jordan]

I looked at this the other day actually.

It passed the house back in September of 2010 and was referred to the senate and sent to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

At this point the committees review the bill and propose to the senate on whether or not to pass it. Typically whatever the committee recommends is what the senate does as they don't ever really have time to familarize themselves with every bill and will vote with their party and or whatever their committees have recommended.

However, I don't have much faith that thing is going to happen anymore though. It passed over 77% majority in the house on 09/29/2010 but it was a democrat sponsored and initiated bill in a democrat majority house of reps. The Republicans really do not like this bill and only 6 out of 87 Republicans voted yes (10 were not present and thus did not vote). While only 1 out of 249 democrats voted no. So this thing is pretty much loved by democrats and loathed by the Republicans (not a very big suprise that republicans hate this bill).

Now that the Senate is primarily Republican I'd say the chances of this thing seeing the light of day aren't very good. I suspect that this bill will get pigeon holed and die in committee or that it will get a neg recommendation, sent to the senate and just flat out get voted down (unlikely because it's a bill that the public likes and wouldn't understand why it got voted down, so instead the republicans will most likely kill off by pigeon holing it and letting it flounder to death in committee).

If it dies in committee or makes it's way to the senate and gets voted down it will never even have the oppurtonity to reach the desk of the president for consideration to become law. It will just be done and over with. And given that the republicans control the senate again is the most likely outcome.

GovTrack: House Vote On Passage: H.R. 3421 [111th]: Medical Debt Relief Act of 2010

[ntnsllc]

umm what?! quit trying to blame stuff on republicans. The Senate is NOT controlled by the Republicans. Senator Harry Reid is STILL the senate majority leader.

Republicans control the HOUSE, Democrats control the SENATE.

U.S. Senate: Senators Home > Senate Leadership

[Hal Jordan]

Originally Posted by ntnsllc

umm what?! quit trying to blame stuff on republicans. The Senate is NOT controlled by the Republicans. Senator Harry Reid is STILL the senate majority leader.

Republicans control the HOUSE, Democrats control the SENATE.

U.S. Senate: Senators Home > Senate Leadership

Republicans NOW control the house but when this bill was first proposed it was controlled by the dems. When the elections end next year the Senate is expected to be held by the republicans.

I was incorrect in saying the Senate is now controlled by the Republicans. I was wrong. But regardless of that fact this is NOT a popular bill with Republicans as you can see by how the party has voted on this bill in the past.

[torero34]

Any update on this bill?

[torero34]

Update:The Senate is yet to vote for this act that was passed on the house of reps.

H.R. 3421 [111th]: Medical Debt Relief Act of 2010 (GovTrack.us)

[Hal Jordan]

It's dead at this point and has been wiped from the books. Unless someone reintroduces it for another vote under a new number we'll never hear about it again.