Congress considers a bill that could help your credit report

Congress is weighing a new bill that would keep medical debt from wreaking havoc on millions of consumers' credit ratings.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 336 to 82, the Medical Debt Relief Act, also known as H.R. 3421.

The bill, originally introduced last year in the House Financial Services Committee, would make it illegal to include medical debts on a consumer's credit reports, if those debts were paid or settled more than 45 days before the credit report is issued.