The Biden administration Tuesday willannounce rules to block medical debt from being used to evaluate borrowers’ fitness for mortgages and other types of loans, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
The proposed rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau arrive less than five months before Election Day and are poised to be part of President Biden’s closing argument that he is addressing pocketbook issues as voters rank the economy as their top concern.The White House has repeatedly focused on the issue of medical debt, saying it disproportionately harms low-income Americans and communities of color.
“This is going to be an enormous relief for so many people battling bills when it comes to medical visits,” CPFB director Rohit Chopra said Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” teasing the forthcoming rules.
The rules set to be announced Tuesday would ban credit reporting agencies from incorporating medical debt when calculating credit scores, said the people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. The rules would also bar lenders from using medical debt to determine loan eligibility, they said.
The proposal will undergo weeks of public comment — meaning this November’s election will probably determine whether the measures are finalized. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump did not seek to remove medical debt from consumers’ credit reports during his four years in the White House.
This could be huge for millions of people. Medical debt can be crippling because the numbers are so large. It’s been mitigated by the availability of insurance and the rules promulgated by Obamacare, but it’s still out there. Even if you have good insurance it can be overwhelming. This sort of debt is unavoidable so it shouldn’t be held against you.
Whether the Wingnut 6 on the Supreme Court will allow this to go through is another story. But Democrats have to try to get this sort of thing done. Student loans and medical debt are major problems that are begging for relief and the high court plays with fire every time it denies that these issues affect every American who isn’t a millionaire.