Three years after her stage four cancer diagnosis, Brittany Lewis has surpassed the median survival rate for glioblastoma, a highly aggressive type of brain tumor.
Her diagnosis and treatment, however, came with a five-digit price tag that has added financial distress to a mentally and physically challenging prognosis.
“Financial problems are not something you want to have, especially in the midst of someone telling you you have six months to live or, yeah, you have about 18 months to live,” she said.
In Texas, about 10.7% of adults — about 2.3 million people — have medical debt, according to the health policy nonprofit KFF. Nationwide, around 20 million people — 1 in 12 adults — owe money directly to their health providers.
“If you have one fall or one illness that lands you in the emergency room, most Americans don’t have the out-of-pocket costs required to cover what they might need to pay for that and that additional money they owe,” said Lynne Cotter, KFF senior health policy research manager.
In January, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Biden administration announced a finalized federal rule that would remove medical debt from consumer credit reports. The agency said in a Jan. 7 press release the rule change would wipe about $49 billion in medical debt from about 15 million Americans' credit reports. The rule would also lead to the approval of 22,000 affordable mortgages.
Proponents described the rule as helpful but limited.
The rule neither eliminates debt, nor does it address credit card debt associated with medical expenses. However, the CFPB estimated the new rule would raise people’s credit scores by an average of 20 points.
Charles Miller, director of health and economic mobility policy for the think tank Texas 2036, said medical debt is not an effective way of judging a person’s creditworthiness.
“Medical debt is a lot more arbitrary than other types of debt,” he said. “There is limited ability of people and consumers to control the amount of that medical debt. And some of that stems from the fact that prices are not terribly transparent and the fact that patients have very little ability to control what happens to them once they get into a situation where they need medical treatment.”
Lewis found help through the group Money Management International, which helps people manage different forms of debt. The nonprofit helped negotiate Lewis' interest and payments.
The rule would have made a difference during her treatments, she said. She would not have had to scramble to pay her debt, and her credit score would not have taken as much of a hit.
“I’m not saying that I’m just going to leave it there, but it’s one of those things where I’ll be like, ‘I’m going to come back to it,'" she said. "Now I feel like I’m battling literally for the little bit of financial and credit life that I have."
Unclear future for CFPB, rule
The rule was scheduled to go into effect in March. However, it’s unclear whether it will go into effect at all after a change in the White House and amid legal challenges.
Two lawsuits filed in federal courts claim the rule contradicts the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which allows consumer reporting agencies to consider medical debt.
The trade association ACA International and medical billing company Specialized Collections Systems, Inc., sued the CFPB in court in Houston. Plano-based Cornerstone Credit Union League and the Consumer Data Industry Association filed a lawsuit in a U.S. District court in Sherman.
Judges in both cases approved the Trump administration’s requests to delay court proceedings until May. U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan approved a delay of the rule’s effective date until June 15.
Russell Vought, CFPB acting director, issued a directive to agency staff and contractors to stop working Feb. 10, according to NPR. The same week, the agency fired more than 100 employees.
On Feb. 14, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., blocked the agency from laying off more employees. The ruling followed lawsuits filed by the National Treasury Employees Union against the agency.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson set a March 3 hearing date in the case.
Joyce Beebe, a public finance fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, does not believe the Trump administration can eliminate the CFPB without an act of Congress. She also doubts the CFPB would prevail in the lawsuits.
“I do see reasons that the people who sue the (CFPB) will probably win because there are clear laws saying that medical debt can be reported,” she said.
Got a tip? Email Kailey Broussard at kbroussard@kera.org.
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