A new California law kicked in earlier this year that keeps delinquent medical debt from appearing on a credit report. The federal government says this is not allowed.<\/p>\n
At risk are the credit scores of millions of Americans who are behind on medical bills.<\/p>\n
How did we get here?<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a quick summary of what is a complicated chain of events.<\/p>\n January – <\/strong>The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule removing medical debt from credit reports. California also adopted a new law that month, accomplishing the same thing.<\/p>\n July –<\/strong> A federal judge blocked the federal rule.<\/p>\n Oct. 28 – <\/strong>The CFPB published an interpretive rule saying states do not have the authority to enact a law like California\u2019s, and more than a dozen other states’.<\/p>\n However, the National Consumer Law Center says the new guidance is not legally binding.<\/p>\n \u201cQuite frankly, states can do whatever they want; they don\u2019t have to rely on a federal agency telling them they can or can\u2019t do something,\u201d said attorney Carla Sanchez-Adams.<\/p>\n What does it mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, in California, nothing really changes. At least for now.<\/p>\n The state law is still in effect and continues to prevent medical debt from popping up in credit reports.<\/p>\n However, should the state law get challenged in court and struck down, folks who are behind on medical bills could see a hefty drop in their credit scores, which can interfere with jobs, housing, or any type of financing that does credit checks.<\/p>\n NCLC believes medical debt has no place on credit reports because it\u2019s simply not a good indicator of creditworthiness and financial responsibility.<\/p>\n \u201cMany times, people who have medical debt are because they are seeking treatment for something that was unplanned, you know, an accident happened, you got a diagnosis that you cannot have predicted, and then, you know, you don\u2019t actually know how much you\u2019re being charged upfront,\u201d Sanchez-Adams said.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve fallen behind on your medical bills, now might be a good time to find out exactly where you stand. Maybe come up with a manageable payment plan to get you back on track.<\/p>\n In California, you have rights<\/a> and protections<\/a> when it comes to facing collections — medical, or otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new California law kicked in earlier this year that keeps delinquent medical debt from appearing on a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":342373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,58606,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-342372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-nbc-7-responds","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115461363016050838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}