Medical debt can be a serious drag on consumers’ financial health. The Biden administration is asking federal agencies to erase medical debt as an underwriting factor in credit programs for certain consumer and small businesses whenever possible.
Medical debt can be a serious drag on consumers’ financial health, but the Biden administration hopes it has a dose of strong medicine coming.
Meanwhile, the Department of Veteran Affairs is looking at its guidelines after taking other steps to curb medical debt reporting. The Small Business Administration is reviewing its lending programs to spot ways to pull medical debt out of the equation when it comes to accessing capital, the White House said.
The White House announcement comes weeks after Equifax EFX, -2.19%, Experian EXPN, -3.75% and TransUnion TRU, -1.63% — the three major credit reporting companies — said they would overhaul how medical debt affects people’s credit scores. The results will remove nearly 70% of medical debt from credit reports, and paid medical bills sent to a collections department will not be included in reports, effective July 1.
Approximately 43 million people had amassed $88 billion in medical debt on their credit reports as of June 2021, according to a recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimate, which noted that the pandemic is only going to make a bad situation worse. Some 11 million people have at least $2,000 in medical debt, while 3 million people owe more than $10,000, the White House said Monday.
The Department of Health and Human Services is asking over 2,000 healthcare providers for information including bill collection approaches, lawsuits against patients owing money and financial aid, Monday’s announcement said.
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