A number of bills signed into law by Gov. Dan McKee in 2024 have now taken effect, including one new law aiming to significantly help those saddled with medical debt.
The bill, H 7103, prohibits medical providers from sharing patients’ medical debt with credit-reporting agencies. In the House, the bill was sponsored by Mary Ann Shallcross Smith (D-Lincoln), who said it was her favorite bill introduced in the 2024 legislative session.
She said she had been lobbied by the Bradford Group, a Providence public-relations, marketing and governmental-affairs firm, to introduce bills easing the burdens on people with medical debt. After looking at it, she said, she realized how big the issue is.
“I did not realize before just how expensive this was,” Shallcross Smith said. “There are a lot of people who get sick, have cancer or get an unexpected injury and next thing you know they have thousands and thousands in medical debt. They asked me if I would submit the bill, and I said I would love to do this … If someone wakes up with cancer, another disease or injury, it’s not fair that they could lose their house, have their wages garnished or have a major percentage being paid in medical debt.”
From there, Shallcross Smith said, she went to her colleagues “desk by desk” to persuade them to support the bill. The bill ended up passing the House in a 71-0 vote, and the Senate approved it in a 34-0 vote, with four and three abstentions, respectively.
Nobody spoke against the bill as it was going through the General Assembly, Shallcross Smith said, with only written testimony being submitted by Department of Human Services and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services regarding language about interest rates and wage garnishments in the bill. Those elements were removed from the law’s final text.
Among those who had been pushing for the bill was Ernie Davis with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The potential impacts on those dealing with such diseases, Davis said, would be large.
“The unfortunate place and space that a lot of our families and patients are under, the unfortunate component of health care in America now, when someone gets a serious illness, it’s almost automatic that they think ‘Oh, I need to start a GoFundMe page now,’” Davis said. “I think it’s sad and sorry that people who get these unfortunate medical diagnoses think they have to go beg other people for money in order to get the care that they need to save their life.”
Davis said that similar bills have been passed in about 14 states.
Throughout his time at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Davis said, it has helped families nationwide who are struggling financially as a result of medical bills.
“Medical debt is not a debt that a consumer chooses to undertake, and as such, we are firm believers in the fact that people’s medical debt should not be reported to credit bureaus as a sense of that person’s credit-worthiness,” Davis said.
Shallcross Smith also said that she had seen the impacts of the bill in conversations with friends after she submitted it. One friend, she said, was moved to tears after hearing about the bill.
“A very close friend of mine, a tear started coming down her eye,” Shallcross Smith said. “I said, what’s the matter? She told me she was diagnosed with cancer 18 months ago and was nearly $70,000 in medical debt. There were more people than I ever realized who had medical debt – it opened my eyes.”
In addition to the medical-debt bill, Shallcross Smith introduced two related bills in 2024’s session. One would prevent liens from being placed on the homes of people with outstanding medical debt, and the other would cap credit-card debt at 3% interest; currently, according to Shallcross Smith, that interest can go up to 15%.
While neither of those bills made it through the General Assembly in 2024, Shallcross Smith said she is reintroducing them this year and is confident that they can both get through.
“I have a very good feeling that we’re going to make another giant step this year,” Shallcross Smith said. “And that will completely increase this law’s impact.”
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