Short title

This Act may be cited as the

Medical Debt Relief Act of 2010

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.

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.

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.