New credit prescription

President Joe Biden’s administration on Sept. 21 announced a proposal to remove medical bills from Americans’ credit reports. The draft rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is intended to help people financially recover from unexpected medical events by preventing creditors from considering patients’ medical bills before deciding to loan them money. The change would also stop creditors from collecting for bills people may ultimately not owe due to opaque pricing schemes and complicated insurance practices.

More than 100 million Americans have medical debt, according to the CFPB. Medical collections appeared on 43 million credit reports in 2021, making them the most common type of collection account on credit records.

The rule change is also a response to the complaint that patients often have difficulty ­getting medical-billing mistakes corrected or resolved. “Millions of people have spent millions of hours disputing these errors, often while recovering from serious illness,” said bureau Director Rohit Chopra when announcing the proposal.

Previous research by the CFPB shows unpaid medical bills are less predictive of future repayment than is debt for car loans, credit cards, or other nonmedical financial obligations. The Fair Credit Reporting Act already restricts creditors’ use of medical information in making credit decisions, but the bureau still receives complaints about illegal credit reporting and debt collections. The CFPB has received public input and is soliciting comments until Oct. 30 on the newly proposed rule.

New York to businesses: Need to hire a worker? First, post your pay

New York state is the latest jurisdiction to require private companies to post ­salary ranges in their job ads. A new statute that took effect Sept. 17 applies the ad rule to companies with four or more employees, and ­failure to comply could lead to fines from the New York State Department of Labor. For commission-only jobs, employers can meet the requirement by stating such in the job description. The statute applies to any jobs that can or will be performed, even in part, in New York, and therefore can be applied to companies that offer remote positions. Depending on how the law is enforced, it could also affect employers who don’t have a physical operation in the Empire State. The amended labor law follows a similar 2022 New York City ordinance. Colorado, Washington, and California also have such pay-transparency laws on the books. —T.V.