IIB 

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 

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. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 


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1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

2 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Medical Debt Relief 

3 Act of 2010’’. 

4 SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. 

5 (a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 

6 (1) Medical debt is unique, and Americans do 

7 not choose when accidents happen or when illness 

8 strikes. 

9 (2) Medical debt collection issues affect both in10 sured and uninsured consumers. 

11 (3) According to credit evaluators, medical debt 

12 collections are more likely to be in dispute, inconsist13 ently reported, and of questionable value in pre14 dicting future payment performance because it is 

15 atypical and nonpredictive. 

16 (4) Nevertheless, medical debt that has been 

17 completely paid off or settled can significantly dam18 age a consumer’s credit score for years. 

19 (5) As a result, consumers can be denied credit 

20 or pay higher interest rates when buying a home or 

21 obtaining a credit card. 

22 (6) Healthcare providers are increasingly turn23 ing to outside collection agencies to help secure pay24 ment from patients and this comes at the expense of 

25 the consumer because medical debts are not typically 

26 reported unless they become assigned to collections. 


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1 (7) In fact, medical bills account for more than 

2 half of all non-credit related collection actions re3 ported to consumer credit reporting agencies. 

4 (8) The issue of medical debt affects millions. 

5 (9) According to the Commonwealth Fund, 

6 medical bill problems or accrued medical debt affects 

7 roughly 72,000,000 working-age adults in America. 

8 (10) For 2007, 28,000,000 working-age Amer9 ican adults were contacted by a collection agency for 

10 unpaid medical bills. 

11 (b) PURPOSE.—It is the purpose of this Act to ex12 clude from consumer credit reports medical debt that had 

13 been characterized as delinquent, charged off, or debt in 

14 collection for credit reporting purposes and has been fully 

15 paid or settled. 

16 SEC. 3. AMENDMENTS TO FAIR CREDIT REPORTING ACT. 

17 (a) MEDICAL DEBT DEFINED.—Section 603 of the 

18 Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681a) is amended 

19 by adding at the end the following new paragraph: 

20 ‘‘(z) MEDICAL DEBT.—The term ‘medical debt’ 

21 means a debt described in section 604(g)(1)(C).’’. 

22 (b) EXCLUSION FOR PAID OR SETTLED MEDICAL

23 DEBT.—Section 605(a) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act 

24 (15 U.S.C. 1681c(a)) is amended by adding at the end 

25 the following new paragraph: 


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1 ‘‘(7) Any information related to a fully paid or 

2 settled medical debt that had been characterized as 

3 delinquent, charged off, or in collection which, from 

4 the date of payment or settlement, antedates the re5 port by more than 45 days.’’. 

6 SEC. 4. PAYGO BUDGETARY EFFECTS. 

7 The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of 

8 complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, 

9 shall be determined by reference to the latest statement 

10 titled ‘‘Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation’ ’’ for 

11 this Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional 

12 Record by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, 

13 provided that such statement has been submitted prior to 

14 the vote on passage. 

Passed the House of Representatives September 29, 

2010. 

Attest: LORRAINE C. MILLER, 

Clerk. 


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