President Donald Trump’s administration is taking aim at state laws that prohibit including medical debt on consumers’ credit reports.

In late October, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a so-called interpretive rule saying that laws banning medical debt reporting in 15 states supersede the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

消費者信用擁護派は警鐘を鳴らしている。 Chi Chi Wu, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, said millions of Americans already face the possibility of higher health insurance premiums, and the reality is that many more could be burdened with medical debt.

If medical debt protection declines, “we’re going to mess with your credit record and make things even worse,” Wu says. 「それは怪我に対する単なる侮辱だ。傷口に塩を塗り込むようなものだ」

医療債務は、米国の消費者にとって経済的不安の主な原因となっています。 According to a 2024 analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Americans owe about $220 billion in medical debt, with about 14 million people owed more than $1,000 and 3 million owed more than $10,000.

3大信用調査機関は、2023年4月に500ドル未満の医療債務の報告を停止した。 For the 15 states that have gone a step further by banning medical debt from appearing on credit reports, the rationale is simple: Adding the data to credit reports is unnecessarily punitive, Wu said.

CFPBは指針の背後にある理由についてコメントを控えた。 However, the agency’s previous document detailed why it claims medical debt reporting harms consumers.

Former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said earlier this year that “no one should have their financial future ruined if they get sick.” He went on to say that reporting debts “allowed debt collectors to abuse the credit reporting system and force people to pay medical bills they didn’t owe.”

Essentially, allowing medical debt to appear on a credit report, whose associated score determines a consumer’s access to credit and ability to purchase a home, places the burden on consumers to overcome sudden and difficult-to-understand debt.

For proponents of putting medical debt on credit reports, “the argument is that credit reports are more accurate because there’s more information, and you don’t want to lend to people who have a lot of medical debt,” Wu said.

“If you’re really struggling financially with medical debt, the first thing that happens is that your credit card balances skyrocket, even if you started with a halfway decent credit score,” she says.

In other words, credit issuers may have all the information they need to determine your creditworthiness just by looking at your credit card usage, which makes up the bulk of your score.信用報告書に医療債務を追加することは、落ち込んでいる消費者を追い出すことになる、とウー氏は言う。

“When people don’t pay their medical debts, it’s often because they simply don’t have the money,” he says. “The government and the system can torture them all they want, but it doesn’t make them much money. It’s water out of stone.”

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