Sen. Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, is carrying Senate Bill 1061, which would remove medical debt from credit reports and prohibit debt collectors from reporting patients’ medical debt information to credit agencies. It would pertain specifically to debt owed to a medical provider, such as a hospital or a doctor’s office.
It passed the Assembly on Monday and is heading to the Senate for a final vote. Until recently, the bill would have also included debt charged to medical credit cards and specialty loans, but changes in the Assembly Appropriations Committee redefined “medical debt” to exclude these.
Limón was surprised by the changes. The amendments were a win for a coalition of bankers and lenders that had been…
