The lame duck Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a new rule Tuesday that will hide an estimated $49 billion in medical debt from credit reports.
The rule, which is slated to affect 15 million Americans, prohibits the inclusion of medical bills on credit reports and bars creditors from using medical information in making lending decisions. The policy specifically targets national credit-reporting companies Equifax, Experian and Transunion, which provide detailed evaluations of consumer finances to banks, employers and landlords. (RELATED: Biden’s Top Bank Cop Who Oversaw Wave Of Regional Failures Resigns Ahead Of Potential Fight With Incoming Trump Admin)
“People who get sick shouldn’t have their financial future upended,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a press release announcing the finalized rule. “The CFPB’s 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.”
In the rule announcement, the CFPB cites its own research claiming medical debt is a poor predictor of a person’s likelihood to repay a loan. However, a 2019 study from the National Institutes of Health cited by Chopra in May 2023 found 66.5 percent of all personal bankruptcies were tied to medical bills.
CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports
This is not “merely” a death blow to medicine in the United States. If this goes unchallenged – it’ll lead to national collapse dragging the rest of the world down the drain with it.@realDonaldTrump it's now or… pic.twitter.com/KpYAztUlcu— The Rogue Dermatologist (@YuvalBibiMDArt) January 7, 2025
Equifax requested the CFPB withdraw the rule in August after it was proposed in June, arguing the CFPB failed to prove medical debts are inaccurately reported, and thus that banning the use of medical history in lending decisions is “not permitted” under federal law: “This arbitrary and capricious finding … (I) fails to consider Congress’s intent to authorize the reporting of medical debt information; (II) does not include a meaningful cost-benefit analysis; (III) does not offer substantial evidence to support its assertion that medical debt information is less predictive; (IV) does not provide substantial evidence that medical debt information is inaccurate; and (V) improperly distinguishes between medical debt owed to healthcare providers (or their agents or assignees) and medical debt owed to credit card issuers.” […]
— Read More: dailycaller.com
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
