By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – Two groups representing the credit reporting and credit union industries have filed a lawsuit challenging a new rule adopted by U.S. President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration banning the inclusion of medical debt in American consumers’ credit reports.
The Consumer Data Industry Association and Cornerstone Credit Union League filed the lawsuit in federal court in Sherman, Texas, on Tuesday, shortly after the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized the regulation.
The agency said the rule would remove $49 billion in medical debts from the credit reports of about 15 million Americans. It was adopted despite demands from Republicans in Congress that Biden’s financial regulators stop issuing new rules as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20.
The trade groups say the rule violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which expressly permits consumer reporting agencies to report information about medical debt and authorizes creditors to consider that information.
“It is black letter law that an agency cannot prohibit through regulations what Congress has expressly permitted by statute,” the lawsuit said. “Because the final rule contravenes the statute, it should be vacated.”
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan, a Trump appointee. The CFPB declined to comment.
According to the CFPB, medical debt provides little indication of whether a borrower is likely to repay a loan and the change should result in rising credit scores and could lead to an additional 22,000 low-cost mortgages per year being issued.
The new rule will also prohibit lenders from considering certain medical information in making lending decisions and help prevent debt collectors from seeking to coerce consumers into paying erroneous medical debts they do not actually owe, the agency said.
Banking and credit bureau industry groups argued that the ban could leave them blind to important information about the risk financial institutions face from borrowers, resulting in banks offering fewer loans.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Matthew Lewis)
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