Gov. Janet Mills (D) has signed a bill into law prohibiting medical debt collectors from placing a lien on a person’s home or garnishing their wages.
This comes less than a year after state lawmakers passed a law preventing medical debt from being factored into Mainers’ credit scores.
[RELATED: Medical Debt Will No Longer Play a Role in Calculating Mainers’ Credit Scores]
After this latest measure, LD 2129, received unanimous approval from members of the Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services (HCIFS) Committee, both the House and the Senate advanced the bill by voice vote.
“Just like with consumer credit reports, a medical emergency should not result in lifelong financial harm through losing a home or wages,” said bill sponsor Sen. Donna Bailey (D-York) in testimony offered earlier this year.
“Medical debt is a hurtful feature of the overall health care system, not the lack of financial literacy or responsibility on the part of the individual,” Sen. Bailey said.
Bailey, a cancer survivor, also spoke Monday on the bill’s signing.
“Medical debt continues to hurt hardworking Maine families who, through no fault of their own, take on debt for seeking medical care — often for a life-changing diagnosis or for a life-threatening emergency,” said Bailey.
“With the signing of this bill, we are taking another critical step to protect Mainers from the harmful impact of this debt,” she said. It is a part of our plan to help folks breathe a little easier, so they can focus on their healing and recovery.”
Gov. Mills also expressed a similar sentiment.
No one should lose their home or their paycheck because they got sick,” said Mills.
“We need to do much more to bring down the cost of health care in this country. But in Maine, we’re not waiting for the Federal government to act,” Mills said. “We are taking action to protect Maine people and to make sure that illness or accident never costs someone their home or their livelihood.”
Click Here to Read Gov. Mills’ Full Press Release
This change will take effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns for the session.
On the surface, this bill’s altruistic motives could be lauded. In reality, this is another example of obtaining services without any consequences. I’m reminded of an ER encounter by a Portland patient for (are you ready?) acne.
Any of the monopolistic healthcare (supposedly) benevolent corporations offer some form of financial assistance or charity care so no one who genuinely needs medically necessary (from a very broad interpretation) care should ever have their accounts go to collections.
The biggest challenge is locating the charity care applications buried in the corporation’s digital sales-pitch website. These monopolies should be required to provide a financial assistance hot-line or patient advocate who could help qualifying patients with assistance in completing complicated charity care applications. Such assistance should be a requirement of their new out-sourcing non-patient care activities contracts or should be state law.