Citizen Portal
Sign In

Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows

Get Lifetime Access

Committee advances bill to let state buy and forgive medical debt with $500,000 and 1:1 matching requirement

House Committee on Consumer Protection and Commerce · March 26, 2026

Loading...

AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

The committee passed SB3025 SD2 HD1 to authorize the Office of Wellness and Resilience to acquire and forgive certain medical debt; the chair adopted the office’s amendment requests and the committee added a $500,000 amount in the report plus a required 1:1 private‑public match.

The House Committee on Consumer Protection and Commerce approved SB3025 SD2 HD1 to create a medical‑debt acquisition and forgiveness program administered by the Office of Wellness and Resilience. Naomi Lightfoot and other office staff outlined the proposal and asked the committee to adopt amendments the office submitted for implementation and procurement.

Lightfoot told the panel the program focuses first on debt already acquired by consolidation organizations and framed medical debt as generally involuntary. "Unlike most loan and credit card debt, medical debt is debt not one that a person typically seeks out and it is the result of an accident or illness," she said, noting the program’s potential to remove economic barriers to wellness. Lightfoot also cited survey results showing about "40% of respondents shared that they consider leaving the state because of high cost of economic strain." The office indicated it would pursue public‑private partnerships and fundraising to support the program.

At decision time the committee adopted the wellness office’s proposed amendments, included a committee‑report notation of $500,000, and added a requirement that private funds raised for the program be matched 1:1 with public funds. The committee recorded the chair’s recommendation to pass the measure with those amendments.

Next steps: the bill will be advanced with the adopted amendments and the matching requirement in the committee report; the office indicated readiness to manage procurement and fundraising to implement the program if the Legislature funds it.