Originally appearing in KFF Health News on February 20, 2026, Rae Ellen Bichell talks to Carolyn Carter, senior attorney at NCLC about how lawmakers in at least eight states this year are aiming to reel in wage garnishment for unpaid medical bills.
Carter said broad laws that don’t require patients to jump through hoops to access protections are the most likely to be effective. Because of that, she and other consumer advocates prefer state policies that get rid of wage garnishment for all debtors and all types of debt.
“It can be hard to identify medical debt as medical debt,” Carter said. “For example, if you have a medical debt and you put it on your credit card, it’s not going to be easy for a court system to identify that debt as medical debt.”
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