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Medical Debt Relief Act of 2025
To amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit the inclusion of medical debt on a consumer report, and for other purposes.
Summary
The bill amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit credit reporting agencies from including medical debt on consumer credit reports. Medical debt is defined as debt related to the receipt of medical services, products, or devices, and includes debt that was sent to collections or charged off. The bill removes exceptions that previously allowed medical debt information to be treated differently, bringing all medical debt under the same exclusion rules. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is required to update its regulations within one year to prohibit creditors from using medical debt information when deciding whether to extend credit to consumers.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
- Sen. Merkley, Jeff [D-OR] (D-OR)
5 cosponsors
Actions (2)
- Jul 29, 2025 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. · senate
- Jul 29, 2025 Introduced in Senate
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Full text
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
July 29, 2025
Mr. Merkley (for himself, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Welch, Mr. Warnock, and Mrs. Gillibrand) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
A BILL
To amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit the inclusion of medical debt on a consumer report, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Medical Debt Relief Act of 2025”.
SEC. 2. AMENDMENTS TO FAIR CREDIT REPORTING ACT.
(a) Medical Debt Defined.—Section 603 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681a) is amended by adding at the end the following: “(bb) Medical Debt.—The term ‘medical debt’ means a debt related to, in whole or in part, transactions, accounts, or balances arising from the receipt of medical services, products, or devices.”.
(b) Exclusion for Medical Debt.—
(1) In general.—Section 605(a) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681c(a)) is amended by striking paragraph (6) and inserting the following:
“(6) Any adverse information related to a medical debt, including a medical debt that was placed for collection, charged to profit or loss, or subjected to any similar action.”.
(2) Technical and conforming amendments.—Section 604(g) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681b(g)) is amended—
(A) in paragraph (1)—
(i) in the matter preceding subparagraph
(A), by striking “(other than medical contact information treated in the manner required under section 605(a)(6))”;
(ii) in subparagraph (A), by adding “or” at the end;
(iii) in subparagraph (B)(ii), by striking “; or” and inserting a period; and
(iv) by striking subparagraph (C); and
(B) in paragraph (2), by striking “(other than medical information treated in the manner required under section 605(a)(6))”.
SEC. 3. MODIFICATION OF REGULATIONS RELATING TO PROHIBITIONS ON USE OF MEDICAL DEBT INFORMATION.
(a) Definitions.—In this section, the terms “credit” and “creditor” have the meanings given those terms in section 702 of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (15 U.S.C. 1691a).
(b) Requirement.—Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection shall amend section 1022.30 of title 12, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor regulation, to ensure that creditors are prohibited from obtaining or using information relating to the medical debt of a consumer in determining whether or not to extend credit to that consumer. <all>
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