Americans are experiencing ‘harassment and intimidation’ from medical debt collectors, Kamala Harris says. Here are 4 ways she plans to prevent that.

• Millions of Americans are weighed down by medical debt that’s often unavoidable.
• Kamala Harris announced four ways the administration will lessen the debt burden and protect consumers.
• It included investigating bad behavior by debt collectors and improving underwriting processes.

President Joe Biden’s administration wants to ensure millions of Americans are not burdened by big debt loads for unavoidable medical care.

On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris announced a plan to lessen the burden of medical debt for consumers while protecting them from unfair debt collection practices, in collaboration with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

As the White House fact sheet stated, one in three adults in the US have medical debt. It’s the largest source of debt in collections, subjecting those who accrued the debt from emergency circumstances to aggressive collection practices, along with hits to their credit reports if they are unable to pay.

“Remember what we are talking about. Folks who are in the process of attempting to recover from an illness, for example,” Harris said during Monday remarks. “That sort of harassment and intimidation is unethical and often it is illegal. And that is why the CFPB has made it a priority to hold debt collectors accountable.”

As Insider previously reported, 23 million Americans have medical debt bills of at least $250, and 3 million have unpaid medical bills totaling over $10,000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The foundation estimated total medical debt in the US is around $195 billion, and a chunk of it is likely caused by inaccurate medical billing. For example, the CFPB recently found inaccurate medical bills cost Americans $88 billion last year, prompting the bureau to ramp up tools to protect consumers in Monday’s announcement.

Here are the four ways Biden’s administration is planning to help Americans with medical debt:

1. The Department of Health and Human Services will request data on medical bill collection practices and share potential violations, while the CFPB will investigate credit reporting companies for potential bad behavior
2. Provide guidance to all agencies to eliminate medical debt as a factor for underwriting, helping consumers get loans for housing and businesses
3. Help half a million low-income veterans get their medical debt forgiven by streamlining the application process
4. And the CFPB will increase education tools for consumers to ensure they are equipped to handle confusing medical billing.

Prior to this announcement, the CFPB had already taken steps to crack down on improper medical billing. For example, a 2014 report from the agency found medical debt was typically not a good indicator of whether someone would default on future debt, partly because of most of that debt resulted from emergency circumstances. And in February, the Department of Veterans Affairs established a new rule to allow most medical debt for veterans to go unreported, following years of issues processing their payments. 

And in March, three major credit firms — TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax — announced they would be removing most medical debt from credit reports starting in July, along with removing unpaid medical debts of $500 or less, which could significantly boost consumers’ credit scores. 

“Having medical debt because you were sick or injured should not lower your credit score and make it more difficult to secure the help you need to get out of debt,” Harris said. “It’s not logical.”