Medical Debt Responsibility Act of 2011

Medical Debt Responsibility Act of 2011 - Amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit a consumer reporting agency from making any report containing information related to a single fully paid or settled medical debt of $2,500 or less that had been characterized as delinquent, charged off, or in collection for credit reporting purposes, which, from the date of payment or settlement, antedates the report by more than 45 calendar days.

[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2086 Introduced in House (IH)]

112th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2086

 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

                              June 2, 2011

  Mr. Shuler (for himself, Mr. Manzullo, Ms. Velazquez, and Mr. Hall) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
Financial Services, and in addition to the Committee on the Budget, for 
a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for 
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the 
                          committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 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 Responsibility Act of 
2011''.

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 credit.
            (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 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 73,000,000 working-age 
        adults in America.
            (10) For 2010, 30,000,000 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 single fully paid or 
        settled medical debt in an amount of $2,500 or less 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.
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