US Finance and Insurance Sector NAICS 52

Jul 16, 2025 - Federal Judge Overturns Rule Omitting Medical Debt From Credit Reports

• A federal judge overruled a policy from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) that barred medical debt from being included on people’s credit reports. The rule went into effect in January 2025 just before President Biden left office and would have cut about $50 billion in medical bills from credit reports of about 15 million Americans. It was also expected to boost the credit score of people carrying medical debt by 20 points and increase approval of mortgage loans by an average of about 22,000 per year. The CFPB maintained that medical debt is not a good indicator of a person’s ability to pay their bills since medical debt often includes mistakes and including them can artificially affect credit scores. One in five Americans have at least one medical debt on their credit reports, per the CFPB.
• About 300 rural hospitals face possible closure due to Medicaid cuts in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill, according to an analysis by the Cecil G. Scheps Center. More than 20% of Americans live in rural areas where Medicaid covers 1 in 4 adults, per non-profit KFF, and those hospitals have long operated on thin margins as Medicaid increasingly fails to cover their costs. The American Hospital Association says that in 2023 rural hospitals already received $28 billion less from Medicaid than the cost to treat patients. The reconciliation bill cuts a program that helps states fund Medicaid payments to healthcare providers, and despite a provision that offers up to $50 billion for five years to offset the cuts, rural hospitals have sounded the alarm that it is not enough. About 36 states will lose $1 billion or more in rural hospital Medicaid funding because of the bill, according to KKR.

• Paper checks draw closer to extinction as the US government transitions to a fully digital payment system which will permanently alter how federal payments are made. As of June 2025, out of 69 million social security recipients, only about 418,000 of those households receive payments through paper checks. An executive order from the Trump administration mandates that all federal payments - intergovernmental payments, benefit payments, tax refunds, and government vendor payments - become digital by September 30, 2025. The order intends to eliminate the costs of processing paper checks and reduce instances of fraud. Paper checks are susceptible to fraud through mail theft and are 16 times more likely to be reported lost, stolen, or undeliverable than electronic payments. The government will make exceptions for certain beneficiaries who do not have access to electronic banking or require emergency funds.
• Net income for the banking industry rose to $286.2 billion for the year 2024, a 5.6% increase from the prior period, but still well below pre-pandemic levels, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). One-time events during the year resulted in lower expenses, higher noninterest income, and smaller losses on securities. Community banks, though, saw a 2.4% net income dip for the year to $29.5 billion - largely due to higher noninterest expenses (up 6.1%) and higher provision expenses (up 20%). Those expenses, among other losses, took a bite out of community banking’s $2.2 billion in net interest income and $1.1 billion in noninterest income.