Dear Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (or CFPB as youāre affectionately called),
I donāt know if you know this, but Iāve admired you from afar for a long time. Ever since I saw one of your attorneys speak at a conference in 2019, where she said itās her job to read every complaint someone files (I think she said she read about 700 a day???), I was enthralled by you.
Iāve never written a love letter to a whole agency before, but I guess thereās a first time for everything. You see, I remember back in March 2022 when you put out that big report about how there was $88 billion (BILLION!) of medical debt showing up on peopleās credit reports, which is a big deal considering medical debt only shows up if the bill goes to collections, so thatās like 43 million people getting screwed by a bill they maybe never even saw.
I literally just got a bill the other day from a doctor who I saw in 2023 (and never again!), so I can only imagine how many people found surprise medical debt in collections on their credit reports without them ever seeing a bill!
The coolest thing is how you got those big three credit bureaus - Experian (boo!), Transunion (boo!), and Equifax (double boo!) - to change how they report medical debt. You got them to 1. Erase all paid medical debt from reports, 2. Only report new medical debt a full year after the debt has been in collections, and - this one is big! - 3. In 2023, credit reports wouldnāt include any medical debt under $500.
But you didnāt stop there, did you? Your report showed that medical debt made no sense to include on credit reports at all - āa medical bill on a personās credit report is a poor predictor of whether they will repay a loan, and contributes to thousands of denied applications on mortgages that consumers would be able to repay.ā
::Sigh:: Common sense just makes me swoon! Of course! How would a bill I didnāt even know I owed, prove whether or not I would be a trustworthy borrower in the future?
The real reason Iām writing is because Iām feeling this whole medical debt thing so acutely all of a sudden. I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis last October (Iām doing much better in case you were wondering) and I feel like I see a doctor every other week now and get a new medical bill just as often.
Itās been so hard to keep track of what I actually owe, if Iāve been double charged, which visit counts for which bill, which procedures should have been covered but were coded wrongā¦and Iām a financial planner, this is, like, my job to understand this stuff!
Iāve been trying to figure out which bills to prioritize, so I looked up the $500 medical debt rule because I remembered when it first came out. Then I saw, on Jan 7th of this year, 2025, you, you! - my beloved CFPB - finalized a ruling that would remove all medical debt from showing up on credit reports, to take effect in March. I couldnāt believe it!
Your director, Rohit Chopra, said, āPeople who get sick shouldnāt have their financial future upendedā¦ The CFPBās final rule will close a special carveout that has allowed debt collectors to abuse the credit reporting system to coerce people into paying medical bills they may not even owe.ā š
I could have cried - you felt like a friendās dad who sat us all down after a long night and said, hey, itās not your fault, you didnāt do anything wrong, and Iāll take care of it.
And then I saw it - the next news article - and it was like a punch to the gut. On Jan 20th, Trump ordered a 60-day freeze on all pending rule making across government agencies. Then on Feb 1st, Rohit Chopra was fired and replaced with Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary, Scott whats-his-face.
I know some people (::cough cough:: Republicans ::cough cough::) love calling you anti-business, because wonāt somebody please think of the debt collectors??
Well, theyāre right, you are! You have to be anti-business if youāre fighting for our rights as consumers! Thatās the whole point. So Iām just gonna say it - theyāre taking you down because you were too good at your job.
Well, I want you to know that I see you, CFPB, as much as you see all 300 million of us. This ruling alone was going to help the 100 million Americans who have medical debt.
I saw how you took on Wells Fargo - twice! - first in 2016 for exposing a fraudulent practice where bankās employees secretly opened millions of fake bank and credit card accounts, and then again in 2018 where you fined them $1 BILLION for forcing customers to buy car insurance and charging mortgage borrowers unfair fees.
I saw how you reported that banks were charging predatory overdraft fees - to the tune of $15.47 BILLION in 2019 - prompting banks like Capital One and Ally Bank to eliminate these fees completely.
And speaking of Capital One, your first big move was ordering them in 2012 to return $140 million to customers who were pressured to buy āadd-on productsā like payment protection and credit monitoring services when they opened a new credit card.
But alas, as I was looking up all your fine accomplishments over the last decade, I saw that just a few days ago, on Feb 10, you got shut down, right in the middle of suing Capital One for not paying $2 BILLION of interest to its savings customers, suing Zelle over fraud on their payment system, and suing Walmart/Branch Messenger for charging over $10 million in junk fees.
I donāt know what your future - our future! - holds and it feels out of my hands, so this love letter is bittersweet.
For now, as I get a steroid shot in my wrist so itās not swollen for weeks at a time, x-ray my joints to make sure thereās no long term damage, and get eye exams every 6 months to make sure my new medication doesnāt trigger a rare side effect of blurred vision and blind spots in my central retina, I can rest easy knowing that at least my medical bills under $500 wonāt suddenly show up on my credit report if I miss one of them.
If thereās ever anything I can do for you, after all youāve done for us, just say the word. Who do I call? Who do I write to? Iām there. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all youāve done. Youāve left our financial lives better than you found them.
Love,
Pam