Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a rule to frame what debt collectors are allowed to do when pursuing many types of overdue bills, including medical debt.
Elham Mirshafiei was at the library cramming for final exams during her senior year at California State University-Long Beach when she grew nauseated and started vomiting. After the 10th episode in an hour, a friend took her to the nearest emergency room. Diagnosis: an intestinal bug and severe dehydration. In a few hours, she was home again, with instructions to eat a bland diet and drink plenty of fluids.
That was in 2010. But the $4,000 bill for the brief emergency department visit at an out-of-network hospital has trailed her ever since. Mirshafiei, 31, has a good job now as a licensed insurance adviser in Palo Alto, Calif. But money is still tight and her priority is paying off her $67,000 student loan debt rather than that old hospital bill.
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