Maryland families are struggling with the high costs of basic needs including food, housing, utilities, and healthcare. We are already seeing many costs increase, putting more pressure on hard-working low-income households. We are working hard to protect patients over profits this legislative session. This morning, two of our priority bills to address medical debt passed out of the House, and we need your help!.

• HB1020 sponsored by Del. Julie Palacovich-Carr will ban hospitals and outpatient providers as well as some healthcare credit cards from reporting medical debt to credit reporting agencies. Patients shouldn’t see their credit scores plummet because they or a loved one needed medical assistance.
• HB268 sponsored by Del. Lorig Charkoudian will ban hospital debt lawsuits that are $500 or below; establish statewide standards for charity care for working families, and create more notice and transparency about the availability of charity care and income-based payment plans.

Senate Finance will be voting on SB981, sponsored by Sen. Steve Hershey THIS AFTERNOON. SB981 is the crossfile of HB268. We need your emails and calls NOW and over the next four hours to make sure that SB981 passes out of Senate Finance with no new amendments.

We also need you to ask to put SB614 sponsored by Sen. Clarence Lam on on the Senate voting list and vote YES with no weakening amendments.

Please help Maryland families by urging your legislators to support these bills TODAY.