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Conservative2019 House of CommonsBonavista--Burin--TrinityNewfoundland and Labrador

Sharon Vokey

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…2wks2W

U.S. Bans Medical Debt from Credit Reports

The U.S. government on Tuesday issued new rules to remove roughly $49 billion in unpaid medical debts from Americans’ credit reports, even as debt collectors and incoming Republican leaders have signaled they might try to overturn the policy entering the Trump administration.The new prohibition targets credit-reporting companies, including Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, which assemble detailed dossiers about consumers that they furnish to banks, employers and landlords so that they can evaluate a person’s finances.Under the new policy, these credit reports can no longer include past-due medical bills, and companies that obtain a person’s credit history cannot evaluate their application based on outstanding medical debts. The regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not forgive any health-related debts.The agency estimated Tuesday that its rules would help about 15 million Americans, some of whom have been unable to obtain jobs, apartments, credit cards or mortgages if unavoidable medical debts appear as glaring, derogatory marks on their credit histories, lowering their scores.Many of these people carry medical debt despite having some form of health insurance. The CFPB said some of the past-due balances are actually erroneous, reflecting amounts already paid or greatly overstated totals compared to what a person actually owes.“People who get sick shouldn’t have their financial future upended,” Rohit Chopra, the agency’s director, said in a statement. “The CFPB’s final rule will close a special carveout that has allowed debt collectors to abuse the credit reporting system to coerce people into paying medical bills they may not even owe.”The CFPB rules are likely to draw sharp opposition from credit-reporting agencies and debt collectors, which blasted the agency last year when it first proposed the idea.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…20hrs20H

Democratic Party Panics as Social Media Gap Widens

Then there’s the Democrats’ own struggles, including the lack of a clear message or messenger to deliver it, according to interviews with dozens of lawmakers, campaign operatives and senior aides.“It’s not like everybody has surrendered,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, describing his party as being in a holding pattern as they engage in “cerebral” questions over the lessons learned from Trump victory.“People are sitting around in circles quietly talking about what the strategy ought to be,” he said. “Are there changes that we need to make? Do we hold Trump accountable on everything that we don’t like that he does? Or should we be selective?”As that messaging debate continues, Democrats are also grappling with how to play in a social media landscape they feel like they’ve fallen behind on.In a private Senate Democratic luncheon last week, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey led colleagues through the shifting dynamics of a media echo chamber that conservatives are thriving in. Democrats scoured examples of how conspiracy theories like one about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, spread rapidly in the conservative media sphere and how Democrats needed to try to harness their own tools to get their messages out better.One of the bright spots Democrats highlighted, according to a source familiar, was a viral video from the pandemic of Warner making a tuna melt in his kitchen that led to the lawmaker being cheered and jeered by people who questioned his culinary leanings.“The communications ecosystem has changed profoundly in ways that most people in their 60s and 70s don’t grasp,” one Democratic senator said of the message of the presentation.Senators talked about the need to repost each other’s social media posts to try and organically get their message out. But they also argued they can’t abandon traditional media altogether.At one point, a Democrat in the meeting asked if their party had their version of conservative influencers, according to a person who attended. Booker responded that the party didn’t have one.“They have a permanent information ecosystem. We don’t,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said following the lunch. “They define us and we don’t get to define them. No matter how good our messaging is here, it doesn’t get reflected, reverberated and amplified like theirs does.”

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