In The Chair: Moss
The Senate agreed to the title of the bill.
Senator Lindsey asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator Lindsey’s statement is as follows:
While I don’t think anyone out there in Michigan would disagree that medical debt is a problem—and they would probably be excited to hear—hopefully will be excited to hear—that our Legislature is taking steps forward on it. I think the bills before us represent a good, bipartisan effort at tackling a real, serious problem the people of Michigan face.
I wanted to also take the opportunity today to call on all of my colleagues to think about how we can do even more. Currently in front of the Michigan Senate, we have an opportunity to not only address medical costs when they become a crisis for people when they face medical debt, but to also help them in getting care in ways that are the most economically feasible for those people. What I’m talking about is, we have an opportunity to move forward on medical price transparency legislation. I’d like to make sure that we pass these bills today but also return to a topic this chamber has debated before. We’ve passed medical price transparency legislation unanimously out of this chamber; the House has passed it unanimously; and it’s in front of us today. I hope everyone will join me in voting “yes” today on handling, yes, this very real issue of dealing with medical debt, but as we do so, that we’ll also think about what more we can do on behalf of the people of Michigan, especially regarding getting good information about how they’re buying medical services.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 451, entitled
A bill to prohibit consumer reporting agencies from including certain information related to medical debt in consumer reports; to establish standards for the collection of medical debt; to regulate certain reporting of medical debt; and to provide remedies.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: