Posted on 01/07/2025 11:08:29 PM PST by blueplum
...The Biden administration is finalizing a rule Tuesday that will end the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports and ban lenders from using certain medical information in loan decisions.
The rule will also remove an estimated $49 billion in medical bills from the credit reports of about 15 million people, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in a press release....
Credit reporting agencies and debt collectors are also expected to oppose the rule. They questioned the bureau’s findings and its authority to issue the regulation...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I’m of mixed thoughts on this.
1. A debt is a debt and bad debts show if people don’t pay.
2. A big part of why medical care is so expensive is people who pay pay for deadbeats.
BUT
1. How they bill has as much internal logic as voodoo
2. Tons of con artists and sloppy hospitals and bill collectors put either mistaken or intentionally fraudulent crud on bills. I pay my debts. Every year I remove absolutely fake or “wrong person” debt from my credit history. Doctors I’ve never seen or heard of bill. One time my wife was aggressively billed for bills related for delivering a baby. We had no baby. She went in to the hospital for an appendicitis. We paid those bills. We were getting all kinds of calls and letters. We resolved this because my wife is a doctor and she went and found the billing docs and labs and screamed at them. Did I mention she’s 3/4 Mescalero Apache and 1/4 Comanche and a former Army combat medic? Her two bronze stars have lots of little Oak leafs on them. Not someone you voluntarily get into a fight with, whatever one thinks of women in combat.
Healthcare costs are out of control that’s for sure. This will enable people to simply not pay though. Unless they plan on implementing debtors prisons. Obamacare needs to be blown up.
Tent. Nose. Camel..,
There was a time not long ago I would’ve been outraged that the government was interfering with a banking system that determines ability to pay back debts. Now after bank bailouts to paper over their malfeasance, and especially now that credit scores went outside the lanes of just lending (i.e. insurance rates), I’m indifferent. No love for banks, and it’s simply unfair for credit scores to be used for anything besides credit.
Just hastening the end to the last vestiges of an actual market for healthcare. Single payer, we’re almost there!
Another smoke and mirrors ploy - designed to blow up halfway into Trump’s presidency...
> Healthcare costs are out of control that’s for sure.<
Now you will be able to add cost of loans are out of control.
EC
Such is the fruit of Gray Beaver’s Stalinist politburo, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
These people do not answer to Congress.
Scotus ruled that’s okay.
Expect higher loan interest rates for everyone.
What is the purpose of a credit report? Will this reform increase or decrease the chances of loan default? I think that the answers are self-evident. We’ll eventually get a replay of the 2008 home mortgage defaults.
When I was a mortgage loan underwriter we didn’t view medical debt especially small stuff as much of a deterrent to approving a loan. We just required that it be paid off at closing.
When large banks began notifying prominent conservative customers that they would no longer do business with them, they chose their side with the fascists and I have ZERO sympathy for them now.
The problem is so much of it isn’t really owed.
Anyone can file a lien on anyone and debt collectors are not afraid to be liars.
One of the most common is where the provider agrees on a fixed price with an insurance company, say $100 for some procedure. Its rack price is $200. The provider is in-network and not supposed to charge the patient the delta, but does so anyway. That’s happened to me. Allegedly straighted out (after many calls to India). Then it appears again years later.
Deeply frustrating. There is zero chance I’d pay, even to close a home loan.
Didn't SCOTUS recent ruling overturning their prior Chevron ruling that courts had to defer to regulators upend that? People can sue now and beaurocrats can't just wave Chevron and get the case tossed, if I'm not mistaken (and I have been known to be mistaken so take it for what it's worth)
We found that many times the client didn’t even know about the debt because they thought the insurance company had paid it.
Ah, with the EOB, the patient knows the portion he is required to pay.
I suppose plenty ignore that, and that’s their fault.
What chaps me is the provider illegally billing the delta between rack price and the discounted rate they promise in return for being “in-network”.
It’s already a crime. But This should be an actionable tort (a civil penalty) with the provider owing the patient the fake charge. It’s the only way to stop the fraudulent billing.
As an aside, this kind of illegal billing is what Joy Behar’s husband was just criminally charged for.
I like this. The last few years doctors offices and hospitals piecemeal billing for nickel and dime stuff has gotten out of hand. Invariably, I will miss something or not get a bill or its a really stale bill for services long forgotten. Lots of times they dont bother to call to find out if you got the bill, they sell it to some slime debt collector.
I’ve been telling the debt collectors to pound sand. I’m not paying them. They don’t like it and threaten to report it to the credit bureaus. Now, I say good. go for it, pal.
I do pay the debts. I demand to know who the original holder of the debt is and handle it with them. Fork debt collectors.
That’s right, they did cancel conservatives, can’t believe that slipped my mind, thanks for reminder. May their balance sheets burn in bad debt issuance.
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