ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Reverend Raphael Warnock is renewing his push to remove medical debt from Americans’ credit reports, citing its impacts on affordability.
Earlier this year, most forms of medical debt were said to be removed from credit reporting processes by all three major reporting companies: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.
According to a letter sent by Warnock to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, he and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio are pushing again to have the CFPB remove medical debt from credit reports and to ban consumer reporting agencies from sharing medical debt information creditors, as well as ban lenders from repossessing medical devices like prosthetics.
In March and June of this year, Warnock and other senators urged the Bureau to move forward with a rule to do so, which he said would provide relief to 15 million Americans.
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“Finalizing the rule would protect families and keep them from being unjustly penalized for seeking medical care,” Warnock and his colleagues wrote in the letter. “This rule would provide vital protections: It would bar lenders from broadly using information about medical debt to make credit eligibility determinations, prohibit the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports, prohibit creditors from repossessing medical devices, and recognize the unique nature of medical debt and not penalize people for seeking treatment and care.”
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For Georgia specifically, Warnock said medical debt impacted 27% of rural residents, a full 10 points higher than the national average. Warnock also said this was in part due to Georgia officials’ refusal to expand Medicaid.
While it’s true that Georgia is one of 10 states that have not yet expanded the Medicaid program, it has recently been test-piloting a version of Medicaid with work requirements, called the Georgia Pathways to Coverage program.
The program was designed by state lawmakers and supported by Gov. Brian Kemp as a way to provide more people with insurance coverage while also encouraging more people to work and go to school as part of the requirements to qualify for the coverage.
However, in June, state lawmakers created a committee to examine the impacts of expanding Medicaid in the state and how it could help Georgians in need. A report on the committee’s findings is expected in June.
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