A medical-debt watchdog gets sidelined by the new administration

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Health, Health & Fitness, Documentary

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A federal agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — CFPB for short — has taken big steps to help people with medical debt. In early February, the Trump administration moved to effectively shutter the agency.

We talked with credit counselor Lara Ceccarelli about how the CFPB has helped clients at the nonprofit where she works, and how she’s navigating the sudden change.

And consumer-rights advocate Chi Chi Wu — an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center — describes the court battle she and her colleagues are mounting to slow down the agency’s dismantling — and where things could go from here.

We’ll track this developing story in next week’s First Aid Kit newsletter, so if you’re not signed up, this is a great time to start: www.armandalegshow.com/firstaidkit.

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Transcript

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0:40.5	Hey there.
0:41.8	Lara Sessirelli works for American Financial Solutions.
0:45.2	That's a nonprofit credit counseling agency.
0:48.3	So Laura spends her days talking with people who have bills they can't pay, debt collectors chasing them, including for medical bills.
0:56.5	And on a recent Sunday night, Laura was whining down her day the way she usually does.
1:01.2	I tend to read the news before bed. I usually find that it gives me less anxiety when I have a clear
1:08.4	picture of, you know, what's happening in the world and I don't feel like I'm in the dark.
1:12.2	And that Sunday was an exception.
1:14.8	That Sunday was February 9th.
1:17.0	And that evening, big news had broken about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB, for short.
1:24.0	It's a federal agency that's basically a watchdog for consumer rights of all kinds.
1:29.2	So for years, whenever Laura's talked to a client and it sounds like a debt collector is
1:33.3	violating their rights, which happens a lot, she has referred the client to the CFPB, and it has
1:40.2	worked. They've created these streamlined processes where consumers can submit complaints
1:44.9	and see enforcement action taken right away. But that's Sunday night, February 9th, news broke
1:51.1	that an official President Donald Trump had put in charge of the CFPB was basically shutting
1:56.9	the agency down, effective immediately. Agency staff had gotten a memo telling them to stop doing their jobs.
	...

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