The American Bankers Association today expressed support for a newly introduced Congressional Review Act resolution that would overturn the CFPB’s rule on reporting of medical debt. The 2025 final rule required reporting agencies to remove medical debt and medical bills from credit reports. The rule also prohibits lenders from considering medical information when making lending decisions.
“The CFPB’s final rule . . . disregards creditors’ legitimate needs for medical debt information and the effect suppressing this information would have on banks’ lending risk, consumers’ default risk, and the availability of credit,” ABA said. “[P]rohibiting consideration of medical debt in credit underwriting would reduce lenders’ ability to understand consumers’ credit risk and ability to repay. As a result, it is likely to cause significant adverse consequences to banks and consumers, including causing tightened credit standards.”
ABA pointed out that the CFPB’s own minimal analysis “shows that medical debt has predictive value.” ABA said the bureau’s rule relied heavily on a decade-plus-old study and on data reflecting consumer experiences during the anomalous COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, ABA noted that “market participants have already adjusted how they consider medical debt” in order to weight it appropriately in credit score models.
