The Maine legislature has passed a bill that aims to ban the credit reporting of medical debts and sent it to Governor Janet Mills for her signature or veto.
🧾 What’s happening: Maine lawmakers unanimously approved L.D. 558, “An Act to Strengthen Consumer Protections by Prohibiting the Report of Medical Debt on Consumer Reports,” which would bar consumer reporting agencies, debt collectors, debt buyers, and medical creditors from furnishing information about medical debt to credit bureaus.
📜 Background: The original version of the bill prohibited reporting medical debt on a consumer’s credit report if:
- The debt was less than 180 days old,
- The consumer was making agreed-upon regular payments,
- Or the debt had been paid or settled in full.
Those partial restrictions have now been replaced by a total ban under the committee amendment adopted by the Senate Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee.
📌 What the bill says: If signed into law, the new provisions would:
- Prohibit any reporting of medical debt, regardless of age or status, to consumer reporting agencies.
- Explicitly ban medical creditors (entities that provide healthcare services), debt collectors, and debt buyers from furnishing medical debt data to credit reporting agencies.
- Define “medical debt,” “debt buyer,” “debt collector,” and “medical creditor” in alignment with the Maine Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
What they said: “It is not right that unintended medical debt could deny someone the opportunity to buy a home, purchase a car or take out a loan,” said State Sen. Donna Bailey, who sponsored the bill. “We need to do all we can to help working Mainers build there lives here. This bill gets us one step closer.”
- “Since there is uncertainty at the federal level, I think it’s really important that Maine step up at the state level to ensure that Mainers are protected,” said Kate Ende, policy director at Augusta-based Consumers for Affordable Healthcare.
