On August 8, 2024, the National Women’s Law Center submitted a comment in response to a proposed ruleĀ strengthening credit protections for people with medical debt.
About 100 million people in the U.S. have medical debt, a crisis that disproportionately burdens women, women of color, disabled women, and women with low incomes. The impact of medical debt is even more devastating when it results in a lower credit score or when it is affects decision-making by lenders, potential employers, landlords, and others who may rely on credit reports. When people’s credit rating is impacted by medical debt, that can have reverberating impacts on their financial security, their health, and their access to housing, jobs, and basic services, deepening the racial, gender, and other disparities that already exist.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed a rule that would limit when people’s medical debt can be disclosed in credit reports and when it can be factored into creditors’ decisions. Our comment underscored the disproportionate harms of medical debt on our communities, supported the proposed rule, and urged the CFPB to expand it even further to protect more people from the destabilizing impacts of medical debt.
Our full comment can be found here.