A bill has been introduced by Rep. Patrick McHenry [R-N.C.], the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, that would amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to exclude paid, non-elective medical debts from a consumer’s credit report and prohibit credit reporting agencies from using Social Security numbers for verification purposes, among other provisions.
The bill, H.R. 1645 — the Protecting Consumer Access to Credit Act — was officially introduced in Congress last week, but the text of the bill was not made available until yesterday.
“Access to credit can make the difference between being able to purchase a home, car, or send a child to college — and not,” Rep. McHenry said in a statement. “An accurate and secure credit profile is the best way to ensure Americans can achieve these goals. My legislation would remove certain adverse credit information incurred at no fault of the consumer, including paid, non-elective medical debt.”
Along with removing paid medical debt and prohibiting the use of Social Security numbers for verification purposes, the bill also place the credit reporting agencies’ cybersecurity efforts under the purview of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, detail how parents can freeze the credit reports of their underaged children, and exclude information related to predatory mortgages, financial abuse, and student loan fraud from being included on consumers’ credit reports. The CFPB would also be required to publish a list of credit reporting agencies on its website, which it already does, and require the CFPB to conduct a study about the use of non-traditional data in credit reporting.
