Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Medical Debt Bill topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Council hearing spotlights Medical Debt Mitigation bill and competing legal, operational concerns
Summary
Councilmember Christina Henderson convened the Committee on Health on Dec. 15 to consider Bill 26-438, the Medical Debt Mitigation Amendment Act of 2025. Advocates urged strong patient protections and a ban on credit reporting; hospitals and credit-reporting trade groups sought narrower definitions and implementation fixes. Government witnesses supported the bill but asked for clarifications on scope and enforcement.
Councilmember Christina Henderson (At-Large), chair of the Committee on Health, opened a hybrid public hearing on Dec. 15, 2025 to consider Bill 26-438, the Medical Debt Mitigation Amendment Act of 2025, saying the legislation "would prevent and mitigate the burden of unpaid medical bills on District residents" and citing a SEDEC report that about 90,000 residents have unpaid medical bills.
Consumer advocates, patient groups and service providers told the committee the bill's combination of standardized financial assistance policies, caps on annual out-of-pocket liability and restrictions on certain collection practices could reduce harms tied to medical debt, including housing instability and worse health outcomes. Chi Chi Wu of the National Consumer Law Center urged the committee to add provisions to make the bill more resistant to federal preemption, and Legal Aid DC recommended explicit enforcement authority for the Office of the Attorney General (OAG).
Hospitals and financial-industry witnesses supported the bill's goals but flagged drafting and operational concerns. Jacqueline Bowens and Justin Palmer of the DC Hospital Association urged aligning technical rules with Maryland's statute where appropriate, allowing presumptive eligibility via electronic databases and considering asset thresholds for eligibility. Banking and collection-industry trade groups said the bill's current definition of "medical debt" could sweep general-purpose credit and routine purchases into scope, creating compliance and privacy problems.
Government witnesses said they support the measure in principle but asked for clearer language on which facilities the law would cover and stronger reporting to enable enforcement. Wendy Weinberg of the OAG recommended enhanced reporting of facilities' financial-assistance and collection contracts to DC Health and for those reports to be shareable with OAG. Sam Hurley of DC Health urged work to align the bill with the agency's regulatory jurisdiction and to avoid implementation gaps for clinic- or certificate-of-need-based providers.
The committee left the record open for written testimony through Dec. 29 and signaled it would work with stakeholders on narrower definitions, implementable eligibility rules and explicit enforcement tools before markup in the new year.
