[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3421 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3421

 To exclude from consumer credit reports medical debt that has been in 
 collection and has been fully paid or settled, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 30, 2009

Ms. Kilroy (for herself, Mr. Gutierrez, Mr. Minnick, Mr. Perriello, Ms. 
 Schakowsky, Mr. Baca, Ms. Speier, Mr. Hinchey, Mr. Ellison, Ms. Moore 
 of Wisconsin, Ms. Fudge, Ms. Kaptur, Mr. Hastings of Florida, and Mr. 
Al Green of Texas) introduced the following bill; which was referred to 
                  the Committee on Financial Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 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 2009''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

    (a) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
            (1) Medical debt is unique because, unlike consumer debt, 
        Americans don't get to choose when accidents happen or when 
        their genetic traits will catch up to their health profile.
            (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 American.
            (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 
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:
    ``(y) 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 debt in collection 
        for credit reporting purposes, which, from the date of payment 
        or settlement, antedates the report by more than 30 calendar 
        days.''.
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