The Senate agreed to the title of the bill.
Senator Anthony asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator Anthony’s statement is as follows:
I rise today in support of Senate Bill Nos. 449-451 and Senate Bill Nos. 701 and 702. As many of you know, nearly 700,000 Michiganders are currently carrying medical debt. Many are insured, working families who face high deductibles or out-of-pocket costs after a single health emergency. For far too many, medical debt isn’t just a one-time bill—it can damage credit, threaten housing and wages, and turn a health crisis into a long-term financial stress. In fact, nearly 40 percent of those who have experienced medical debt say they have to cut back on essentials such as food, rent, or heat. An unexpected emergency or illness is stressful enough, yet the sky-high cost of care and aggressive debt collection practices are forcing people into a cycle of debt they can’t get out of. It’s time to break that cycle.
Over the last few years, we’ve taken meaningful steps to address this issue. In fact, in the FY 2024 state budget, we fought to ensure funding to erase medical debt for over 200,000 Michiganders in Macomb County, Wayne, Oakland, Ingham, as well as St. Joe. That work made a huge difference, but we knew that it couldn’t stand alone.
The bills before us today help stop this problem before it even starts by making sure that hospital charity care options are transparent and accessible to the public. We’re also establishing protections for people already struggling to pay off their debt, keeping medical debt off of credit reports and placing clear and reasonable limits on extreme collection practices like wage garnishment, liens, and foreclosures, while capping interest so debt doesn’t spiral. Importantly, these bills do not change how care is delivered or reimbursed—they simply modernize the rules to better protect people and help them get back on track. Today, we can step forward and join a growing movement across the country; one rooted in a simple idea that people shouldn’t be punished for getting the care they need and deserve.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 450, entitled
A bill to amend 1913 PA 350, entitled “An act to enable counties to establish and maintain public hospitals, levy a tax and issue bonds therefor, borrow money and issue bonds and notes therefor, elect hospital trustees, maintain training schools for nurses, maintain nursing home facilities, provide suitable means for the care of tuberculous persons, and to make possible the ultimate establishment of an adequate supply of hospitals,” by amending section 17 (MCL 331.167).
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: