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The Wall St Journal
The Spokesman-Review
Legislature funds health coverage
KREM
KXLY
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The Wall St Journal
The biggest credit-reporting firms will strip tens of billions of dollars in medical debt from consumers’ credit reports, erasing a black mark that makes it harder for millions of Americans to borrow.
Equifax Inc., Experian PLC and TransUnion are making broad changes to how they report medical debt beginning this summer. The changes, which have been in the works for several months, will remove nearly 70% of medical debt in collections accounts from credit reports.
Beginning in July, the companies will remove medical debt that was paid after it was sent to collections. These debts can stick around on a consumer’s credit report for up to seven years, even if they are paid off. New unpaid medical debts won’t get added to credit reports for a full year after being sent to collections.
The firms are also planning to remove unpaid medical debts of less than $500 in the first half of next year. That threshold could rise, according to people familiar with the matter.
Medical debt is a huge burden for many Americans. Medical emergencies and unexpected diagnoses often result in giant bills that can easily overwhelm people who otherwise never miss a debt payment. The unpaid bills end up on credit reports, sometimes lowering consumers’ credit scores and hindering their ability to get affordable mortgages, car loans and other credit.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates that some $88 billion in medical bills sits on 43 million credit reports. The three credit-reporting firms maintain reports on more than 200 million people in the U.S.
“This is an important step to support consumers in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic,” the companies said in a joint statement. “These changes reflect our ongoing commitment to helping facilitate access to fair and affordable credit for all consumers.”
The firms are also trying to appease the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to people familiar with the matter, which has made credit reporting a priority under director Rohit Chopra. The CFPB earlier in March said that it planned to hold credit-reporting firms accountable for not taking enough action against companies that report erroneous medical debts.
The agency has taken a hard line on the U.S. credit-reporting system, which plays a huge role in determining who gets credit and who doesn’t. Consumers have little control over what is added to their credit reports, which rely on information submitted by lenders, collections firms and others.
The CFPB is investigating how Equifax handles consumer disputes, the company said in a recent regulatory filing. Experian and TransUnion are also under investigation over their handling of disputes, according to people familiar with the matter.
“As the CFPB is our primary regulator, we have continual engagement with them on a variety of issues,” a TransUnion spokesman said. Experian didn’t respond to a request for comment on the investigation.
The CFPB has said its research indicates that medical debt is less predictive of a person’s ability to repay than other kinds of loans, an assessment some banks endorse. Still, “medical debt collections on an individual’s credit report can impact their ability to buy or rent a home, raise the price they pay for a car or for insurance, and make it more difficult to find a job,” the agency said.
The main customers of credit-reporting firms are lenders, which use the information on credit reports to assess the likelihood that loan applicants will pay back their debts.
The credit-reporting firms have been speaking with banks to get their take on removing medical debts, according to people familiar with the matter. Some banks have said they worry less about removing smaller unpaid medical bills and those that are in collections for a shorter period, the people said.
Banks worry that removing certain debts can make some loan applicants look less risky than they actually are, which could result in unexpected defaults and losses. Yet banks are in the business of lending money, and they don’t want to turn away customers if they don’t have to.
Banks today draw on a wealth of bespoke data, including information drawn from customers’ bank accounts, to make lending decisions. They are relying less on traditional metrics, such as credit scores derived primarily from the information on peoples’ credit reports.
Unpaid medical bills were addressed in settlements the three firms reached with state attorneys general dating back to 2015. The companies are now required to wait about six months before adding medical debt to consumers’ credit reports, and they must remove debts that were paid by insurance companies.
The credit-reporting firms have removed a swath of negative information from collections firms in recent years, including unpaid library fines, traffic tickets and gym memberships. In 2017, the companies decided to begin removing tax-lien and civil-judgment data.
Write to AnnaMaria Andriotis at annamaria.andriotis@wsj.com
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The Spokesman-Review
Legislature funds health coverage
By Arielle Dreher
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Immigrants who cannot currently access health insurance in Washington may soon have options.
Lawmakers approved funding earlier this year to pave the way to coverage for hundreds of thousands of Washington residents who do not have health insurance.
There are an estimated 465,000 uninsured Washington residents, and an estimated 105,000 of them also lack federal immigration documents.
A coalition of dozens of community groups and advocacy organizations called for lawmakers to fund health insurance for all immigrants regardless of documentation or legal status in the country.
The 2020 Washington Immigrant Health Access survey, which focused on participants 18 and older who do not qualify for state health insurance, found that two key barriers to accessing health care were lack of health insurance and the high costs of care.
The pandemic made already difficult access to care even more stressful. Since February 2020, 90% of survey respondents had lost their job or reported lower income, and many of them were working in high-risk, in-person jobs during the pandemic.
“What we’ve seen is the pandemic has laid bare the urgency of this problem,” said Sarah Dixit of the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of Spokane, which is one of the groups advocating for the extended health care coverage.
Lawmakers allocated $12.1 million to three state agencies to begin the process of building coverage programs for these uninsured Washington residents.
Some of the funding will go to the Health Care Authority to build a Medicaid-parity program that would cover uninsured individuals who would qualify for Medicaid if they were eligible, up to and below 138% of the poverty level.
For those who wouldn’t qualify for that program, the state would need to create a way for others to purchase their insurance on the health benefits exchange, which means the state likely will need to apply for a federal waiver from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The programs would not be implemented until 2024, and the legislative supplemental budget plan sets aside millions to be invested in them in 2023 ahead of their launch.
“It’s heartening to see there’s a commitment from the Legislature to immigrant communities and this is starting to take shape as a program in their minds,” said Emily Brice, senior attorney at Northwest Health Law Advocates.
Undocumented immigrants, including recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, cannot get covered on Medicaid or buy health care coverage on the benefits exchange. Even some immigrants with documentation cannot access one or both of the programs, depending on what kind of visa they have or their immigration status.
The exception in Washington is that pregnant people and children are eligible for Medicaid coverage regardless of immigration status. Coalition members praised the Legislature for dedicating funding to this coverage, but also note that health insurance is just a first step. Other barriers to care like transportation and translation are also important for communities to access the care they need.
“What is the next step in terms of planting more clinics or working with clinics that exist?” Dixit said.
Lili Navarrete, with Raiz of Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and Idaho, grew up without health insurance and remembers her mother making home remedies instead of taking sick family members to the doctor .
She said there are still families doing this for fear of not having health insuranceor being unable to afford the care they might need.
“That’s why we advocate and fight and take our voices to the Legislature, to have money provided so people can have access to insurance or health care,” Navarrete said.
Arielle Dreher can be reached at (509) 459-5467 or at arielled@spokesman. com.
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KREM
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill Thursday rolling back part of the state’s sweeping police reform legislation from last year after law enforcement and key Democratic lawmakers agreed the original bill went too far.
The measure, House Bill 2037, makes clear police can use force to stop people from fleeing temporary investigative detentions, known as Terry stops. Officers said restrictions passed by lawmakers in 2021 had left them unable to do so, meaning potential suspects could simply leave.
Under the bill, police still must use reasonable care, including appropriate de-escalation techniques, and they may not use force during Terry stops when the people being detained are compliant. Inslee said it “upholds the principle of police accountability, de-escalation and the protection of individual liberties."
Following 2020's widespread protests for police accountability in the wake of George Floyd's murder, Washington lawmakers passed an array of reforms covering everything from the background checks officers undergo before they're hired to the circumstances under which they can be decertified.
Among them was House Bill 1310, which said officers could use force only when they had probable cause to make an arrest or to prevent imminent injury, and that they were required to use appropriate de-escalation tactics if possible.
Police said the measure hindered their response to crime: Often when officers show up at a scene, they need to detain people to figure out if they were involved in a crime. But under House Bill 1310, they couldn't use force to detain them unless they already had probable cause to arrest them, they said.
Police accountability activists said that was by design. Too often, they argued, officers use force against the wrong people, especially minorities. The Washington Coalition for Police Accountability urged Inslee to veto the measure allowing police to use force to prevent people from fleeing, saying House Bill 1310 was “deliberately written to address discriminatory policing and reduce violence.”
“Police don’t need additional authority to use force,” said Leslie Cushman, of the coalition.
Rep. Jesse Johnson, the Federal Way Democrat who sponsored House Bill 1310, said restricting the ability of police to detain fleeing suspects was unintentional. The measure signed by Inslee Thursday allows police to do their jobs while also requiring them to use no more force than necessary.
The bill also addresses another shortcoming identified by police: They noted that while House Bill 1310 restricted when they can use force, it left undefined what “force” is. The measure defines it as any act reasonably likely to cause physical pain, or any act exerted upon a person to compel or gain control of them. It doesn't include pat-downs or handcuffing a compliant suspect.
Earlier this month Inslee signed two other bills fixing parts of last year's police reform package. One made clear officers may use force to help detain or transport people in a behavioral health crisis, while the other corrected an oversight that seemed to inadvertently prohibit police departments from possessing certain less-lethal weapons.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward has created a task force to bring mental health awareness to the greater Spokane community.
"This isn't my wheelhouse. I'm not an expert on mental health," Mayor Woodward said. "But, I know my mental health has suffered during the pandemic, just like everyone's. By bringing the experts together so that number one, we can increase awareness about the mental health services and resources that we have here that people just don't know about. So there's an awareness campaign component to that. And also reducing the stigma associated with mental health."
The Mayor's task force on mental health held its first meeting last week. The group's three dozen members show a robust list of people representing Spokane's education, health care, youth services and government officials from the region.
That includes congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and state representative Marcus Riccelli.
Mayor Woodward says the goal of the task force is education, connecting people to resources, identifying needed resources and finding ways to fund them
One challenge the group already identified is the shortage of regional mental health counselors.
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KXLY
Posted: March 18, 2022 7:07 PM by Emily Blume
DEER PARK, Wa. — Over the past few days, women have been hammering, drilling, painting, and landscaping to create big futures for people in our community.
As part of Women’s History Month, Habitat for Humanity is celebrating women. It’s embracing the women who are out there helping others transform their lives- but also, those building a better future for their families through the programs.
Hawa Nasir moved from Sudan back in 2014. Six years later, she’s a soon-to-be Habitat homeowner.
https://twitter.com/emilyblume_kxly/status/1504996320372674561
“My mother is going to be with me. I am so happy. I am so happy for all of you guys for making this come true,” Hawa’s translator told us on her behalf.
“By being able to shine a light on the inequities that women still see, and trying to gain credit, and obtain a mortgage loan. It’s still so wildly skewed. It’s really important for us to highlight that it’s inequity and injustice,” explained Michelle Girardot, Chief Executive Officer at Habitat for Humanity Spokane.
To get this point, Hawa put in at least 250 “Sweat Equity Hours”, helping to build Habitat homes, across the Spokane area. She’ll also pay an affordable mortgage, never paying more than 30% of her income towards the home and she took finances classes.
“I am excited for the holidays. The holidays are coming up,” explained Hawa. She’s ready to host Ramadan in her new home and says this all beyond her wildest dreams. “You guys should come over too!!” she added.
It’s this kind of success that makes the hard work of these women volunteers so much sweeter.
“Sometimes we see blessings in the burdens of our lives because of a safe, decent, affordable place to live,” said Michelle.
“I never thought I’d get a home here in the U.S.! Even in Spokane too! It wasn’t even planned. I never thought!” said Hawa.
Within the next 2 months, families will be moving into homes at the Hope Meadows Development in Deer Park. Once the development is complete, there will be 117 Habitat for Humanity homes in that specific area.