Mary Jo Kilroy: “This bill would protect hardworking Americans who play by the rules, pay or settle their medical debts, and yet find…”

“This bill would protect hardworking Americans who play by the rules, pay or settle their medical debts, and yet find their economic well-being and credit scores adversely affected for years to come due to medical debt, large or small, that has gone to collection. Specifically, this legislation would prohibit credit reporting agencies from including in an individual's credit report fully paid off or settled medical debt collection. So many of us have had issues with trying to figure out what insurance companies are paying and what they were responsible for or maybe had to fight with a health insurance company to get them to honor their obligation to pay a health care bill or maybe they had a high deductible policy to save money and took a little bit extra time to pay off their bill. But pay they did. And yet they find that their credit is adversely affected for years to come. This is a serious problem that can affect millions of people. In fact, according to the Commonwealth Fund, medical bill problems or accrued medical debt affects roughly 72 million working-age adults in America.”