States advance medical debt protections as federal support turns to opposition

The press frames this as cruel federal “opposition” versus compassionate states. That skips a basic question: who decides the rules for credit markets and health billing, and what happens when fifty different regimes collide.

States want to protect families, and that instinct is understandable. But rewriting credit reporting by fiat can punish people who play by the rules and raise costs for everyone through tighter underwriting. Conservatives are wary of feel good fixes that blur contract enforcement and ignore why medical prices are opaque in the first place.

The better lane is rule of law and clear authority. If Congress wants a national standard, it should legislate it. If states want to curb abusive billing, focus on price transparency, fraud, and hospital charity care instead of politicizing credit files.

In the end, public trust depends on predictable rules and fairness to payers and patients, not improvisation dressed up as reform.