Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Wednesday, 02/25/2026 at 01:02 in the afternoon. So we're beginning our afternoon to take a look at h one sixty, which is an act relating to creating a right to repair for medical devices. We have Rick Siegel with us, our legislative council. Think we looked at this last year. We didn't?

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Maybe a walk through. We did

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: a walk through. I think we did briefly long enough ago that we probably need a refresher. Yeah.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Alright. Good afternoon. Rick Segal, office of Council. So H one sixty, as the chair said, is a right to repair bill. And just kind of as share my screen here momentarily. There have been several of these bills last several years, right to repair. There's been a general, I think it's one sixty one right to repair in Bill. There's been a right to repair agriculture equipment that almost got its way to the governor's desk a couple years ago. So there's this idea that consumers don't always have the ability to repair equipment or maybe some of the places that do repairs that are not the manufacturer, places that offer repairs of equipment sometimes can't do the repairs. There's a kind of technical things that I think are preventing people from conducting the repairs. So you must send it to the manufacturer or someone that the manufacturer authorized to repair the equipment. So this bill 160 is specific to medical devices. It does create a new chapter, which is in Title IX and would have more of these right to repair in case the General Assembly ever decided to add several different rights to repair. So, we start off with definitions as usual and the definition of authorized repair provider is some type of entity that has this arrangement with the original equipment manufacturer where this OEM, I'm going say that for short from now on, where the OEM grants to this individual or business a license to use their trademark, service mark or some other identifier for the purpose of offering the services of diagnosis, maintenance for a pair of medical equipment under the name of the OEM, or some other arrangement with the OEM to offer such services. So again, this is like a license or some kind of agreement that the OEM has with an entity to do these repairs.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: An

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: OEM, same definition, that offers the services of diagnosis, maintenance, repair shall be considered an authorized repair provider. So if company X not only sells the product, makes it, but also repairs it, company X would be considered an authorized repair provider. Documentation means any manual diagram, reporting output, service code description, schematic diagram, security code, password, or other guidance or information used to perform the purposes of diagnosis, maintenance,

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: or repair of medical equipment.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Fair and reasonable terms means making available parts, tools, documentation with respect to documentation or repair, that the documentation is provided by the OEM at no charge, except that when the documentation was requested in physical printed form, a charge may be included for the reasonable actual cost of preparing and sending the copy. With respect to tools, the tools are made available by the OEM at no charge without requiring authorization or internet access or use for operation of the tool or imposing impediments to access or use of the tool to diagnose, maintain, or repair and enable full functionality of medical equipment, except when it's in physical form, a charge may be included for the reasonable costs. With respect to parts, parts that are made available by the OEM either directly or indirectly through an authorized repair provider to independent repair providers, which is defined later, and healthcare facilities at reasonable costs and terms that are equivalent to the most favorable costs and terms under which an OEM offers the part to the authorized repair provider. And that any account for any discount rebate convenient and timely means of delivery means of enabling fully restored and updated functionality, rights of use, or their incentive or preference that the OEM offers to an authorized repair provider, or any additional cost burden or impediment the OEM imposes on an independent repair provider or healthcare facility. That are not conditioned on or imposing a substantial obligation or restriction that is not reasonably necessary for enabling the independent repair provider or healthcare facility to engage in a diagnosis, maintenance or repair of medical equipment made by or on behalf of the OEM and are not conditioned on an arrangement described in 1A, which is the authorized repair provider provision. Okay, healthcare facility means all persons or institutions, including mobile facilities, whether public or private, that proprietary not for profit that offer diagnosis, treatment, inpatient or ambulatory care to two or more unrelated persons and the buildings in which those services are offered. The term shall not apply to any facility operated by religious groups, defined solely on spiritual means through prayer or healing, but includes all institutions including 18 BSA nine thousand four hundred thirty two A. Eight accept health maintenance organizations. Independent repair provider means a person operating in the state who does

[Rep. Michael Boutin]: not have an arrangement as an authorized repair provider and who is engaged in the diagnosis, service, maintenance, or repair of medical equipment.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Metal equipment or just equipment means any power device approved by the US FDA that is used in the treatment, monitoring or diagnosis of a patient and include the system, adaptive and rehabilitative devices. Original equipment manufacturer or OEM means a business engaged in the selling, bleaching or otherwise supplying new medical equipment manufactured by or on behalf of itself. Part means any replacement part, either used or new, made available by the OEM for purposes of affecting these services or maintenance or repair of medical equipment manufactured by or on behalf of, sold, or otherwise supplied by the OEM. Tools means any software program, service key hardware implement, or other apparatus used for diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of medical equipment. Bless you. Including software, other mechanisms. That provision, program, or pair a new part, facilitate access to the equipment's repair and diagnostic functions, calibrate functionality, or perform any other function required to bring the product back to fully functional condition, including any updates. And trade secret has the same meaning as in federal law. Any questions about the

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: definitions? Okay.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, the requirements for medical equipment and parts sold and used in the state. So, right there, we're talking about not just products that are sold here, also used. So, you can buy a product in New York and bring it here. That would be considered using the medical equipment in the state or a part. The OEM of the equipment

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: or an authorized repair provider or

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: shall make available to independent repair providers and healthcare facilities on fair and reasonable terms documentation, parts and tools that are required for diagnosis, maintenance or repair of the medical equipment and parts for the medical equipment, inclusive of any updates to information, and training courses and materials on the operation, inspection, diagnosis, maintenance, and repair of the equipment that the OEM similarly provides to authorized repair providers. Some of these equipment parts have locks, security locks. So, for medical equipment sold and used in the state that contains an electronic security lock or other security related function, the OEM of the equipment or parts of an authorized repair provider shall make available to independent repair providers and healthcare facilities on fair and reasonable terms, special documentation, tools and parts required to access and reset the lock or function when disabled in the course of diagnosis, maintenance or repair of the equipment, and they shall be made available through appropriate secure release systems. Okay, limitations. This sub chapter does not require an OEM to divulge a trade secret to an independent repair provider or health care facility. It does not alter the terms of any arrangement described in 41 forty forty nine one a, which is the authorized repair provider provision, including the performance or provision of warranty or recall repair work by an authorized repair provider on behalf of an OEM pursuant to such arrangement, except that any provision governing such an arrangement that purports to waive, avoid, restrict, or limit the OEM's obligations to comply with the subchapter is void and unenforceable. OEMs and authorized repair providers are not liable for damage caused to any medical equipment by independent repair providers or healthcare facilities that occurs during the course of the repair, diagnosis, or maintenance of the equipment. This language looks familiar, enforcement language. So, this would be under the Vermont Consumer Protection Act, which makes it clear that a violation of this subchapter is a deceptive act in trader commerce. And the AG would have the same authority to make rules, conduct civil investigations. This is the same language in most of your consumer protection bills. Implementation. This act applies to medical equipment and parts sold or in use in the state on or actively effective date of the act. So, just to make clear that if a product is in use before the act and the repair happens or the need to repair happens before the act is effective, then that would not be required of the OEM to provide those tools or equipment. However, if it's used after the effective date, then you could request the repair be facilitated. And of course, if you buy it after, it's effective. And the effective date would need to be changed. This was a bill from last year. So currently, it's separate 07/01/2025.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: So

[Rep. Herb Olson]: implementation, if it's sold before July 1, It's in use after July when it is.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: This covers individual people.

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Let's look at the definition. Yes, please. Thank So

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: it includes independent repair provider, which means a person operating in the state who does not have an arrangement with an OEM and who is engaged in the diagnosis, service, maintenance or repair of medical equipment. So if it's just somebody, a individual who, as a hobby, does this type of work, I don't think they would meet that definition. I think it needs to be someone who is that is their business, that they engage in this type of work. If you wanted it to include individuals, I would update the definition to do that. But this equipment might be more complex. I don't know if that's gonna be an issue either. I

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: think under most circumstances, I like Jonathan's idea, but I think here, would because you could be dealing with people's lives here, and you don't want some guy rolling up with, I think I can fix this going in there, and now someone's dead. I think that because we're dealing with medical equipment, there needs to be a higher bar.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: On that, I'm wondering about the actual patient themselves. If they are somebody that is able to and with this equipment and understands how to make it work, Do we want to make some space for them?

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: Dialysis machines around the home. Maybe

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: that is a good piece too.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thank you, Rick. Yeah.

[Devin Green, Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems]: Good morning. I'm Devin Green, Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. Thank you for having me in today. And we are very supportive of h one sixty, the right to repair bill. As you all know, Vermont is at an inflection point in health care affordability right now, and we are looking to make things more affordable for Vermonters as well as ensure that they get steady access to care. And so we welcome the option to allow for servicers to repair without restrictions. I will say that the FDA has guidelines around this. CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, have their conditions of participation that address this. The outcome of violating those conditions of participation is that you don't get Medicare Medicaid funding. So we take those very seriously. I think they provide a good guideline. And in short, we are really just looking for more flexibility, ways to reduce expenses, as well as ensure that our patients receive uninterrupted care. So we support this bill.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Questions for Duncan? Yeah, so are

[Rep. Herb Olson]: there any differences one way or another from the federal guidelines to what's in this bill?

[Devin Green, Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems]: I think I will have to go back and look at them further, but I think my understanding is that this is a little bit different. The federal FDA guidelines talk about what remanufacturing looks like and how to do that safely. So I think it's a little bit different. It's talking about the safety sort of standards around all of this as opposed to allowing people to do the repairs.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thanks, Devon.

[Devin Green, Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems]: Thank you. And I have to run to another committee, but thank you.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Adrian?

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: Thank you for this opportunity to testify. Chair Marcotte, vice chair granting, ranking member White, and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify in respectful opposition of h one sixty. My name is Adrian Frederick, and I am testifying on behalf of Avamed. We are the largest medical technology manufacturing, association, and we have and our nearly 600, I'm sorry, our nearly 600 members include innovators and manufacturers across the full spectrum of medical technology, from diagnostic and imaging tools to digital health and life sustaining devices. Patient safety is Avamed's top priority, and H160 would unnecessarily expose patients to an increased risk of harm by requiring medical technology providers to share proprietary design and repair information with unauthorized third party servicers. I will note of the eight states that have passed right to repair laws, none of these state none of these laws have applied to FDA regulated medical devices. Further, Vermont's other pending right to repair bill, h one sixty one, exempts medical devices. Medical devices are often complex systems, and often unauthorized service providers lack the necessary training to repair these systems. For example, if imaging equipment, like a CT or an MRI, isn't calibrated correctly after servicing a repair, it could lead to detrimental patient outcomes. I was not intending on sharing this story, but this is a personal story for me. I have a cyst on my heart. I require imaging regularly to make sure that cyst does not get any larger. A lot of it depends on the size. If it grows, then I have to have intervention. If it doesn't, I continue to be monitored. I rely on the accuracy of these devices. And so patients and providers depend on the diagnostic information to be accurate and for the devices to be used functioning as expected. Medical device manufacturers are subject to strict regulations by the Food and Drug Administration to ensure patient safety. These regulations protect the safety and efficacy of medical devices and include registration with the FDA, implementation of quality and safety controls, proper training, and qualification of replacement parts. Medical device manufacturers are required to follow FDA regulations and are required to report adverse events. Unauthorized third party services are not required to do either. If a device is improperly repaired, it could lead to a significant liability risk. In fact, an FDA report found that more than four thousand three hundred adverse events, including two ninety four serious injuries and forty deaths from devices repaired by unauthorized third party officers. Proponents may suggest that this bill will alleviate delays, but there is no evidence of systemic shortages or delays. With appropriate training, device manufacturers regularly authorize third party services to service and repair medical devices. In closing, I would like to reiterate that patient safety is our number one concern, and every single state that has passed a right to repair law has recognized this concern and provided for patient safety. Again, thank your you consideration, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I'm happy to take

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: questions. Questions?

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: Oh, yeah, thank you. I was just wondering if you could just point us as we're researching this as a committee, two sources for the harm that you started out with your testimony with, Is the studies and stuff

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: it okay if I reach out to you after the factual?

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: Sure. Absolutely. Totally.

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: Sorry. What are your your name?

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: Oh, you can just send it to the

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: I'll send it to Jonathan. Okay. Thank you so much.

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: I was just wondering. You you say that you work with third party companies

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: Yes.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Who

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: authorize. Is there a charge for them to get authorized? And and what kind of do you have, like, agreements? How does that all how does how easy is it for someone to get authorized? I guess, I want

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: I'm sorry. I was Sorry. Sorry. I would have to ask some of our member companies. I, unfortunately, those are contracting contracting issues, and I cannot broadly speak to the contracting issues. But I do know that they they train folks, especially in areas that there's may not be a large population. So it depends from being in Boston and being up here. So there may be third party services, authorized third party services working in this area or further north in New Hampshire and things like that.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Yeah, thanks very much. So I was curious, I think previous witness talked about FDA and Medicare participation rate, participation agreements, they seem like safety standards. And so I'm curious where you think the gap is there.

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: So as part of the life cycle of a device, once it's authorized by the FDA, our member companies, the manufacturers, have to report adverse events. In my understanding, the CMS regulations do not have to you don't have to report adverse events under that. I could be wrong about that, and I can double check. But there, we're talking she was Devin was speaking mostly to the remanufacturing of things, and that is a different portion. That's taking something that's being for example, if somebody is putting in new equipment that our manu an OEM can take it back, and they can remanufacture it, and then resell it, refurbish it, and that is a separate part that FDA also does. But I'm speaking to the life cycle of the product, in which, as the product is being used by patients, if there are adverse events, that they would have to Original manufacturers would have to report any adverse events that they would know of.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: So you're saying that the federal regulations only apply to the manufacture of the device itself?

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: So there's the FDA requirements for the device as part of It's called the five ten process. That is different than the remanufacturing. I unfortunately am not an FDA expert, and I would have to get more information about it. That's Yeah. There are people who are far smarter than me who do FDA work. But I'm happy to follow-up with I can follow-up with some more additional information about the Okay, there's

[Rep. Herb Olson]: a gate participation.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: So I was really,

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: really curious about I guess I'm sort of similar to what Tony was talking about. I'm curious to know if there is a timeliness or any kind of delays getting repairs for very rural environments. And I was also thinking specifically not just of the hospitals and institutions, but for patients, that they have medical devices that they're using at home.

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: Yeah, if you have at home dialysis and things I like can double check on that. I don't want to misquote it. I know we have some statistics around most x percent is within this period of time, this percent, that. Sometimes, and I know it came up during the pandemic, that there were issues and delays, a lot of that was linked to global supply chain issues. Those supply chain issues have largely resolved themselves. So assuming that there's not any other outside forces acting on supply chain issues. Thank you.

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: Monique? Yeah, so I was going ask a very similar question to Emily. So yeah, would also be interested in the statistics of rounds. When we were dealing with the general rights repair, we were looking at farmers having their tractors break down in the middle of fields and then waiting on going through very specific entities that control the marketplace rather than being able to go local. And to extend that point and build off of it, could you speak to the fact of often when we're seeing this, there's very few players who control the entire marketplace. And I think as a consumer protection and also looking at business innovation and things like that as a committee, or trying to balance that. So could you speak a little bit to your thoughts as far as in support of the Rights Repair is that this creates a competitive marketplace and it expands access to resources. But I'm I'm assuming you have counterpoints to that that I would love to hear.

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: Is that your if somebody is interested in becoming an authorized third party servicer, they would just need to reach out to the original many the the OEM. There is nothing prohibiting somebody who is interested in becoming one to take the necessary steps to do the trainings to connect with those manufacturers.

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: Do they have to pay to do that as well?

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: That, I believe, depends on it. That would vary by OEM to OEM. I, unfortunately, do not know the specifics of certain contracts, and that would speak to some to sometimes of the business decisions. But there's nothing prohibiting that. There's also I'm sorry. I had another thought, and I don't remember what

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: it was. Do you have

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: statistics on the general, even if it's an average cost of somebody being being able to be licensed? That would be an interesting thing for us to learn, I think.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Why don't

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: you finish me? This pertained to the element of the testimony that was submitted to our committee about that twenty eighteen reports. Yes. Is the assertion that the cause of the injuries and deaths was specifically the third party main repair or just that it's

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: I believe it was tied to a third part to unauthorized third party repair.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: So it's a it's a a causal link?

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: Yes. I believe that's what the FDA reports stated. And those are the that is the incidents that we know about. Yeah. Because I've heard anecdotally from people, like, one of our members is a tech one of our members has a technician out in rural Western excuse me. Western Montana, Idaho, that kind of area, and they had an AED. He was servicing another piece of equipment. And this technician asked, do we do I need to service the AED while I'm out here? And they said, oh, no, the radio guy will take care of it. The next time he was out there was to repair that AED because it malfunctioned and the patient had passed away. I don't know if that was reported as part of the adverse events. We don't But a lot of times when we hear about it, it's anecdotal from somebody who had to go out and fix a piece of equipment. So

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: A final question is is repair of devices a could you estimate about what portion of an OEM's revenue was tied to maintenance?

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: I, unfortunately, have no that's beyond my scope of information. But I if you're curious about it, I can see if I can find some.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thanks. That'd be wonderful.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: I appreciate

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: all the questions. Sorry, I'm a slow writer.

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: No, you're all good. I know that the US Army has come out publicly saying that they would love to see medical, right to repair pass. And so I'm curious, especially thinking about our National Guard and things like that. Do you you would you support the US military having access to right to repair when it comes to medical medical devices in the field, basically?

[Adrian Frederick, AdvaMed]: So I unfortunately cannot speak to that. I do know that when there's devices that are deployed into forward operating bases, those are often meant to be left behind or they can be replaced. So if you're going into Say you're going to a forward operating base, you will go If you need an ultrasound, it could be a tablet, and it could be an ultrasound wand. That ultrasound wand I'm using this as an example, only as a hypothetical. That could just be tossed, if needed. And they could send a new one out. Unfortunately, cannot. I'm not in a position to make a statement regarding what the military would be.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Other questions?

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: K? Good afternoon.

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: Finally found the buttons. Hello, everybody. I'm Gay Gordon Byrne. I'm the executive director of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition, otherwise known as repair.org. I'm so happy that you've allowed me to speak with you. I'm sorry I'm not in Burlington with you. I'm going to plead snow. We've had quite a lot of it, and it is in the way. Anyway, I just wanted to give you guys a little bit of a briefing of what's going on around the nation. There was a couple comments made about none of the other states have included right to repair, which I find pretty funny because we've included right to repair in all of our bills since 2014. It is the legislators that choose how they're going to slice and dice the opposition. And sometimes they want to focus on ag equipment, and sometimes they want to focus on appliances. We don't get to tell them what they want to do. And if they decide they want to trim the bill down and make it more interesting for their constituents, they will trim what they want to trim. And unfortunately, medical equipment is easy to trim because people don't understand it. They'll hear things and I've heard this in actual testimony in other states, They will hear things from some of the opponents that if there's right to repair pests, consumers are going to take out a scalpel and do their own pacemaker repair. Now, I laugh because I know that's completely absurd, but not everybody laughs. So it takes a little extra education to explain to people what you are allowed to do in a medical setting, how the regulations work, what the requirements are, what the training is, and it just takes time. So, I'm very glad that you have the option of allowing us to speak to you about those issues. I brought along two real, real experts that can answer questions. Scott McHeal is at Mass General. He's been a biomedical engineer for, I think you said, twenty four years. Anyway, Scott will give you his bio and then Bennington Wang, who has been on the approval side. He's very involved with what the FDA does. He can talk about the third party world. And he's also going to be on the line. So he will answer those questions, I think, quite adequately. So yeah, legislators make choices all the time about what they're going to bring forward. Right to repair is a very large bill. But it's also the same bill, it doesn't really matter. We don't care what the computer is. If the computers are in a refrigerator or tractor or an MRI, to us, it's just a computer. And it gets fixed in the same way as any other computer. So, the skills that you need and the tools that you need are pretty well consistent, regardless of what the product is. So, just hope you will listen to Scott and to Bennington and come back to us with any questions about what's going on in other states. Some of the bills have already passed or being passed, by the way, have included powered wheelchairs and other in home technology. So there is quite a bit of hope there for this bill to be expanded so that people that need to do things in their home can. So questions along those lines, happy to answer. So right now, I think I'll just introduce Scott and ask him to take it away.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Scott, welcome.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Oh,

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: there's no audio.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: We can't hear you.

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: No. Are you? Gotta find another button.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: That shield sounds good.

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: I know it works. I talked to him yesterday. No. Okay.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Does Yeah. Have an

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: Could we jump to Bennington?

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Yeah. I

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: just want to let

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: you know, Zoom does have an option that you can have it go through your phone. If you click on the mic, the dropdown, it'll say switch to phone. And then you can call in and do whatever it says. It gives you instructions.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Can we send him or we move to Bennington?

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: Yeah. Let's let's work on that on the

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: on

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: the side.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Yep.

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: Okay. I don't know what that's

[Rep. Herb Olson]: What the say.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: That's fine.

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: He needs a technician.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: He's from the. Yeah.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: I'm sure they've got some

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: good IT people over the.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Singh is on is he on the Zoom? He's not on he's not on the Zoom?

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: Well, while we're kind of dancing around waiting for somebody to get on there's a couple questions that came up that I think I can answer for you if you would like. In terms of what the training requirements are. You can't just show up and knock on the door and say, Hey, lady, can I fix your MRI? I got spare parts in the back of the truck. That's not how this particular industry works. Don't get access to hospitals without having proper credentials. And that was even bigger during COVID than it is today. So, nobody's coming into your facility saying, oh, I can fix this. I know how to do this. That's just not how the business works. Third parties that are skilled, that have the qualifications, that have the engineering certifications, those are not provided by the OEM. They're provided by colleges. Like at UVM, the College of Engineering certifies engineers for biomedical engineering. So, it's not random. It's not arbitrary. There are a number of OEMs that provide training courses, and they're costly. Scott, you with us? No. Yay. No?

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: No, not yet.

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: Not yet? Okay.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: I have one question I could ask Gabe. In your reading of this bill, does it include the right to repair wheelchairs that are not powered?

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Well,

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: I don't think it's specific to its power supply. Might want to ask, who was it that was speaking earlier that was going through the requirements? This version of the bill I haven't looked at in a while. But powered wheelchairs have had some specific problems where the manufacturers have refused to do things like replace a battery. And it's that power it's this power supply for the wheelchair that's been the contentious part. I think it's called assistive technology in the bill. And unless the definition from the FDA says, assistive technology does or do not include a power supply, I would lean on the FDA definition. We're not trying to do anything to FDA definitions. We're not doing, we're not trying to do anything that changes anything other than make, make sure there's more availability, and with availability comes the option of competition. And with the option of competition you can get into cost control. And that's how it all links together for. Let's call it resource constrained places like Vermont, and like Upstate New York where I live. By the way, I will since

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: is There we go.

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: Oh, there we go. Please turn the window on.

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: Can you hear me now?

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: I can hear you, Anthony. Wonderful. I'm gonna get

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: off sorry about that.

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: Oh, no problem.

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: Our IT department kinda makes it difficult to add new devices.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: So

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: seeing is how you can hear me. Here. I'm Jay Scott McHale. I'm I'm a CBET. I passed the exam in 1994. I work at Mass General. I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer. I've been a biomed since 1980, and I've been a hospital biomed since 1994. A member of the New England Society of Clinical Engineering, the American College of Clinical Engineering, Biomed of the Year in 2018, and the FDA had me testify in 2016 and 2018 when they were investigating medical equipment repair. And, you know, a lot of my contributions showed up in the Fidera seven '10 report in which the FDA found that medical equipment servicing by third parties was safe and essential to the health care industry. So I was a big part of that, and I've been part of that right up until 2025 when the collaborative community that was supposed to be convened between manufacturers and hospitals was disbanded due to lack of support by manufacturers. My opposite number there from Advamed didn't tell you the whole story. Sure. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA, but hospitals are regulated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies and their accrediting agency, the Joint Commission. And we also follow NFPA 99, The US National Healthcare Facilities Code, which tells us everything that we need to know how to make medical equipment safe for our patients in our hospitals. We wouldn't be in business if we had biomeds in hospitals doing unsafe things with technology. And, you know, whenever a medical equipment manufacturer or a third party service company visits our hospital, their visit is vetted by the biomed department or clinical engineering department. And, you know, we review the repair and accept it and sign off on it. That equipment is double inspected after a manufacturer's representative might come in here and and do do their work. So I'm here to support h one sixty. Thank you for having me. And I know quite a few people up in Vermont at at UVM and the program up there. And you guys have one of the best programs in the world up there, and I urge you very much to support them and pass this bill. And I really appreciate the comment on behalf of the US military because they need this too. So for me, this is a real problem every day at the bedside. What I do for a living in the OR is I go into the Operating Room during surgery and help the doctors and the nurses with the technology. My core specialty is anesthesia systems. And our anesthesia manufacturer sells us parts, gives us service manuals, gives us training. And I literally have to repair anesthesia machines during surgery with the patient on the table. Replace a sensor that's failed, replace a a line that has started leaking. I've even had to replace ventilator parts while the ventilator was paused during surgery. So that's the critical criticality of the level that I I work on. When we talk to doctors and nurses, I'll say, biomeds are like the white blood cells of the hospital. We always come when you need us. You never hear a stat page from an operating room. Manufacturer's rep to o r seven stat. What you hear is biomed to o r seven stat. And we definitely need the service manuals. They're like the the DNA of medical equipment. We need parts. And at this point in time, we're really having a hard time with all of our major vendors in the in the industry are saying no, and to giving us service manuals and parts, and and your bill would go a long way to helping that. As an as an example, we have surgical tables. We have over a 100 of them, and we literally have companies that are telling us that, oh, sorry. We're not gonna sell you a part for that surgical table, that specialty surgical table used in critical cases. You have to put it on a pallet, put it on a truck, and ship it to us. And the the cost of shipping that table is on the hospital to the tune of around $3,000 just for the freight. And it comes back in that they have, you know, $1,520,000 dollars of repair and $6,000 of freight going on there. And one thing you should really know about how this how this goes is for us to pay a dollar out on the back end of most health care facilities, $4 of revenue has to come in. So that $3,000 for shipping is actually $12,000 impact on hospital revenues.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: You know,

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: I've had a specialty piece of surgical equipment that the vendor in Upstate New York says, oh, we're not gonna let you work on that, but we'll send the person to do the maintenance and calibration, and it's gonna cost you $5,000 in travel and labor. The guy is literally here for thirty minutes, uses his software key to open the device, does the calibration, and leaves. And it's that'll be $5,000. Thank you very much. But the impact to that on the hospital's revenue is $20,000. So there's a huge cost component. You know, I can't I can't tell you enough how important it is for your legislature to actually do this and pass this bill and to not pay any attention to the scared tactics from my opposite number in Advamed. So if Vermont enacts h one sixty, it would set a national precedent and immediately strengthen both Vermont's health care system and The US health care system. For Vermont, this bill would empower the highly trained clinical engineering and biomedical professionals already working in your hospitals, giving them the tools and information they need to keep critical equipment operating safely, reliably, and without unnecessary delays. Nationally, Vermont's leadership would demonstrate that a modern patient safety focused approach to medical equipment servicing is both feasible and essential By becoming the first state to adopt a medical right to repair framework, Vermont would help shift the country towards fairness and equity in technology support, reduced downtime, stronger resilience across health care systems, benefits that directly support patient care and the professionals who deliver it. So that was kind of like the statement that I wrote. Like I said, I just can't emphasize enough how much it would mean to people like me in the trenches at the bedsides if you guys were to pull this off and make it happen. Do you have any questions for me?

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: Yeah. Thank you so much, Scott. So in your professional opinion, would this bill improve patients' patient care, reduce costs without sacrificing safety? Absolutely.

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: Without without a doubt. Because one of the things that can impact patient care is a critical piece of equipment fails or becomes broken. And if a biomed in one of your hospitals can be called there immediately to the scene and has access to the tools, the knowledge, can go into the diagnostic menu with a code and resolve that problem, that patient just has a few extra minutes in the waiting room as opposed to if that biomed is not empowered to do that. The clinician has to come out and say, well, we're sorry. You know, this appointment that you waited three months to get, well, you're gonna have to go home and wait some more because the piece of equipment is down, and we have to wait for the company to come and service it. I mean, that that's the that happens really. That that's a real thing that happens, impacting clinical schedules, patient appointments, and things like that. I can't emphasize enough how how frustrated I get when a piece of my technology is malfunctioning, and I can't help my caregivers immediately. You know, that's that's the big thing. And once again, don't worry about Avamed's care tactics because it's not valid. You know? It's it's just not a real thing. It doesn't happen in real hospitals. You know, biomeds and biomed departments are are absolutely safety driven. The joint commission that certifies us, you know, sees to that. We have risk management departments. We have quality departments. We have every bit as robust a quality system as they do. It's just not their quality system. When they say to us, oh, you you're not regulated by the FDA. Blah blah blah. Well, it's like saying, well, why doesn't your baseball team play by football rules? Well, they're two different completely different things. We don't use or follow their rule book, and they and so what's what's the point to their argument that we don't follow FDA regulations when we have CMS and The US National Health Care Facilities Code. It's it's just different. It's it's not that we're not regulated. And when we have third party services into our organization to do stuff, they're very highly vetted, observed, and a biomed is is monitoring their work and signing off on it. It's not like they just waltz in, do something to a piece of medical equipment, and waltz out. It's that's not how it works in real life. Back to you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Great. Thank you.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Have you ever had

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: a situation

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: where yeah. We've talked about software keys or some things like that, where lack of access has forced a doctor to abort a procedure?

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: So I can't yes and no. And sitting behind me in the blurred background is our expert on cardiac ultrasound systems.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: And

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: it's the darndest thing. He was sent to the school, repaid to send him to the ultrasound school, yet all he can really do is diagnose the machine and do a minor maintenance on it. And yet, if he has to do were to have to do a major repair and replace a component or subsystem, has to call in the vendor to use their software keys to open up the machine for the for the parts to be put in. And, you know, that's, you know, thousands of dollars in expense that we wouldn't need to incur if they, instead of playing that game with us, just gave him the access key so he could install that part, test it, and get the piece of equipment back out into the cardiac OR right away. There are a lot of things that we could repair if we had the access keys into the software. But because that's one of the things that's happening is these medical equipment manufacturers are designing service models and service systems that intentionally lock hospital biomeds out of out of their the system because it's a huge profit model. The service after the sale is is a huge a huge deal to them, and they're doing everything that they can with software to lock us out and, you know, over and over and over again. I literally have a piece of equipment right next to me. It's a plastic box with a pump in it, and the company is adamantly refusing to give me a service manual or help me out, you know, with repairing it. It's it's just ludicrous how far the pendulum has swung in the wrong direction, and I I really honestly hope that the state of Vermont, you know, swings it back the other way, especially with how distant you can be from some of the the service providers down here in in the the lower half of New England. I mean, you guys your hospitals must get killed on travel bill travel hour billing on some of this stuff. It's I I was a lab equipment tech from for quite a few years, and I remember how how much it was to drive up to White River Junction. And, you know, my hour billing on some of those calls was, like, a lot more than the than the labor of doing the lab analyzer repair. And back to you for more questions. Thank you.

[Rep. Michael Boutin]: Anything about that?

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Any other questions?

[Rep. Michael Boutin]: It looks like I'm wanting to see it on the b series monitor and what was what. Okay. Thank you, Scott. Well,

[J. Scott McHale, CBET (Massachusetts General Hospital)]: thank you, and good luck with the bill, I really I'm really hoping for it.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thank you. We have been sent. Yeah. It's insane.

[Dr. Bennington Wang]: Yes. I'm here. Thank you.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Good afternoon.

[Dr. Bennington Wang]: Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to testify. Honorable chair Marcotte, vice chair Graning, and members of the committee, I'm deeply honored and humbled to testify on h January. In the interest of time, I'm not going to present the full written document that I submitted to Jonathan. I hope you have a copy. And, I'm going to basically provide a summary of what I provided and then try to answer your questions. First, let me introduce myself. I have earned a doctor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, and worked for more than thirty years in the three largest medical equipment service companies here in The United States as the vice president for quality and regulatory affairs. Those companies were Medic, Aramark, and Sodexo. In this capacity, I oversaw servicing of more than 1,000,000 pieces of medical equipment deployed in over 350 hospitals around the country, varying from small rural hospitals to major teaching hospitals. I also had the privilege of working for a few American manufacturers of medical devices as their quality and regulatory compliance officer and serving as their liaison with the FDA. Hence, my comments on h one sixty is not based on a single stakeholder's perspective, namely medical device servicer, but a comprehensive and balanced opinion that considers the challenges and interests of all stakeholders with the ultimate goal of providing the best and safest medical devices at reasonable cost for the benefit of the patients and health care providers. During my thirty plus years of work in the medical device field, I participated in the provision of critical medical equipment during several major national emergencies, such as the Oklahoma City bombing, nine eleven attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and the recent COVID pandemic. In these emergencies, the prompt availability of safe and reliable medical devices is essential for the care of the victims and save their lives. While most manufacturers were quite willing to help, they simply did not have the necessary manpower in the right places and at the right times. So most of them, during these emergencies, agreed to provide the in house biomed staff like Scott, who just testified before me, and independent service organization like the companies I used to work for with the service material documentation tools, etcetera, parts so they can provide the clinical staff with the essential equipment that can be repaired properly and revived in order to support the patients, such as the ventilators infusion pumps that you saw most likely during the pandemic. Unfortunately, after these emergencies, many manufacturers decided to fall back to their traditional position of refusing to provide those service material, alleging several concerns, some of which I'd like to address next. The first and foremost that is often mentioned is patient safety. And as Scott mentioned, the Food and Drug Administration was mandated by the Congress to investigate the safety and quality of services provided by third parties and submitted a report to the congress in 2018. And I'm going to quote a few of their conclusions, which I actually provided you with the executive summary in the written document. The first conclusion was that the objective evidence indicates that many OEMs, manufacturers, and third parties, entities provide high quality, safe, and effective servicing of medical devices. Second conclusion, the continued availability of third party entities to service and repair medical devices is critical to the functioning of The United States health system. And the third conclusion was that a majority of the comments, complaints, and adverse event reports alleging that inadequate servicing costs are contributed to clinical adverse events and deaths actually pertain to remanufacturing and not servicing. In other words, most of the so called poor servicing incidents were actually remanufacturing activities that were likely the results of services too eager to help the health care providers with the prompt repair, but did not have access to the specifications or documentation that they asked for the manufacturer to provide, and therefore they ventured outside of the boundaries of servicing. And this issue called remanufacturing was actually addressed later by the FDA in its guidance document that was published in 2024 called remanufacturing of medical devices. And, also, I think some manufacturers have alleged that in that FDA report, the FDA reviewed more than 4,300 medical device reports that included death and serious injuries, but their conclusion was not apparently related to you folks, and I'm going to read it here. Quote, due to the limited information contained in the three hundred thirty four MDRs of death and serious injury, we were not able to establish a conclusive relationship between device third party entity servicing and the subsequent adverse event, unquote. In other words, even FDA was not able to establish this relationship, so I don't think we can bring the services necessary for some of these incidents. The second point I would like to emphasize and discuss is the regulatory oversight. Repeatedly, manufacturer have stated that there is no oversight. That is actually not true. In that same 2018 report, FDA stated unequivocally that it has full authority to regulate servicing. That is part of the Food and Drug Act that they are upholding for the entire nation. And the reason this that I'm going to quote FDA here is that it says the current available objective evidence is not sufficient to conclude whether or not there is a widespread public health concern relating to servicing, including by third party services or medical devices, that would justify imposing additional different burdensome regulatory requirements at this time. In other words, FDA itself reviewed the material, the complaints, etcetera, and concluded there is no reason for them to impose additional different burdensome regulatory requirements. But it is within the authority to regulate if they want to, and if they detect a problem, they will shut down a particular service company or one of the factories even if they deem that company is not following the regulations. In addition, I would like to remind you folks that you know probably better than me, the Centers for MedicareMedicaid Services, CMS, which is a sister organization of the FDA under the Department of Health and Human Services, also has strict requirements on the servicing of medical devices to the hospitals that participate in the Medicare Medicaid program, and those requirements are transferred by the hospitals to the third party services as well. So the bottom line here is that FDA has full authority to do whatever it deems necessary, but has chosen not to do it because they don't see such a significant problem. I'm going to go off tangent a little bit here to say that some people may not agree, but regulatory oversight is necessary. Definitely, I don't disagree with that, but I don't think it is sufficient to ensure safety and quality of medical devices. For example, the FDA's own recall database showed the number of device recalls per year has been increasing continuously in the last couple of decades. And by the end of last year 2025, there were 331,000,000 devices under recall because of manufacturing problems, not because of servicing problems. And the United States Government Accountability Office, GAO, reported back in 2011 that the FDA needs to enhance its oversight of recalls by, quote, using, unquote, continuing, quote, recall data to proactively identify and address the risk presented by unsafe devices, unquote. So the bottom line here is the real challenge is not the lack of regulations, but the lack of enforcement of regulations by the government. Another favorite topic by some manufacturers that are opposing the right to repair is the intellectual property and service revenue issue that was already mentioned, but I'm going to quote specifically the fact that the European Union, EU, has mandated the release of service material except for the maintenance software access since 1993 and reiterated this mandate in 2011 when it issued the most recent medical device regulation. So if such right to repair mandate will cause manufacturers to suffer substantial losses of intellectual property or service revenue, one would think that they would have ceased their operations in the European Union and moved their business elsewhere. But the same manufacturers that are complaining about opposing right to repair in The United States, they have been doing business for more than thirty years in Europe, and some of them are actually headquarters in Europe. So why are they complaining about it here in The United States if they already follow similar regulations in Europe? I'm going to skip over cybersecurity risks and the alleged exemption in the federal Fair Repair Act that have been mentioned by some of our, OEMs that are opposing our, right to repair the h one sixty. I just want to remind folks that there is a significant clear precedent for right to repair for medical devices, not generally, not all medical devices, but one particular class of medical devices called powered wheelchairs. Powered wheelchairs are classified by the Food and Drug Administration as class two medical devices. In other words, the same class as the infusion pumps that you see we offer in hospitals. So this is not a precedence. This is not unique. This is already happening in Colorado, California, Nevada, and Oregon, and Washington state. In essence, I believe that right to repair is critical for safe and prompt delivery of care to Americans, especially for those located in rural and remote areas, which have been struggling to survive over the last two decades. Many of them are at the risk of closure. Even for hospitals located in the metropolitan areas, right repair allows them to keep using their medical devices safely and effectively much longer than, estimated useful lives, thus avoiding premature replacement and saving precious investment capital. Furthermore, by extending the device useful lives, it is possible to help contain the accelerated rise of health care costs, reduce toxic waste, and lessen detrimental impact on the environment. Therefore, I respectfully urge you to advance H160. Thank you for your precious time and attention. I shall be happy to answer any questions now or via email or telephone later. Thank you.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thank you. You. Just a quick one.

[Monique Priestley (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much, Doctor. Wang. So in your mind, would this bill help control costs and extend the general life of equipment the hospitals are using?

[Dr. Bennington Wang]: Absolutely. Actually, when I was working for one of those service companies, namely Sodexo, we investigated more than 300,000 pieces of equipment that were maintained by that company for the last thirty years. And we saw that through good maintenance and management of equipment, we were able to extend the lives of those pieces of equipment for more than double the amount of years that are estimated by the American Hospital Associations as their so called useful lives. In other words, double the amount of years. This is like extending the lives of your cars, automobiles, by taking good care of them, and, therefore, you most definitely can save precious capital and also more importantly take better care of your patients who are in urgent need typically of prompt care.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you, Doctor. Wang.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: In your experience, has there been a difference between the service that you get from rented or leased equipment versus what is owned by a hospital or institution?

[Dr. Bennington Wang]: Not necessarily. It depends, again, who is taking care of the equipment and how well they take care of the equipment. I'm not going to be able to provide names here. I don't want to create particular concerns here, but, there are definitely companies and hospitals who are extremely careful in doing their work and provide safe and effective service like the FDA has investigated. But there are definitely also not only service companies, rental companies, or, loan, but also manufacturers. Have you as have you seen, some manufacturers provide very poorly made design equipment, only have been then later on be forced to recall them. So bad apples do exist, and we need everyone to be responsible doing what, for example, you see in airports. If you see something, say something. And that is, I think, our duty. But the bottom line here is that the vast majority of the professionals in the field, doesn't matter whether they work for a hospital directly or they work for a third party but as, stationed in hospitals, or they are working in a dead pole location, we fought the way from the hospital, most of them, to the best of my understanding and and also contact or directly contact with them, They want to do a good job because at the end of the day, we are very mindful that our loved ones, including ourselves. I'm old. You can see from my right here. I am a patient. My loved ones can be patients, and we don't want to see anyone suffering because of poor service of the equipment that we took care of and then provided back to the clinical users. The clinical users also get frustrated if we don't provide them with safe and reliable equipment. So this is a concern, a goal, I think, of everyone involved. There are only a few people who are putting money, greed above the public interest here. And I think those are the ones that we need to address very stringently, carefully.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Thank you.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Thank you.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Last question, Jonathan. Very briefly, thank you, Doctor. Wong.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: The question I had pertained to a portion of the testimony you provided, where you described service material as not only the documentation tools and parts as defined in H-one 160, but also detailed technical specifications of the device and its components. Are you Is it your suggestion that the language in the bill is overly restrictive, and as written, does not include those necessary technical specifications of the device and its components?

[Dr. Bennington Wang]: No, no, I'm only saying that could be benefited by expanding a little bit. Let me give you one example that was cited actually by the FDA as a remanufacturing issue and not a servicing issue. There was this ultrasound probe that is used by the clinicians to put inside the digestive tract of the patients to see what's troubling them inside their stomach. Okay. There could be also cancer or something. So they use this ultrasound probe going into the mouth and then deeply into the digestive tract to see what's going on inside. The probe broke, so they asked someone to repair the probe. The probe was repaired. It was something that was loose or broken inside what whatever. But they needed to seal the probe back in order to allow it to be put into the patient because you don't want to leave the leak opening there that would allow introduction of fluid and also germs into the patient. So the service company people try to patch that, piece back together by using a generically available group. Okay? That is unfortunately not the original spec by the manufacturer. The manufacturer did not provide the specifications, and that GRU was not tested for biocompatibility when it was used. So that was a clear case of someone trying their best to provide prompt service to the clinicians, but actually went beyond the limits because they didn't know what was the specification. So they just said, okay, let me use the first glue I can find that it seems good, reliable, and but was never tested in terms of biocompatibility. So that is why I think specifications must be included in this combination of service material that we are asking for. I hope I answered your question.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. We have to move on to our next bill, but we appreciate your testimony and your time that you gave us today.

[Dr. Bennington Wang]: Thank you.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Jonathan, can you see if Maria's outside the door?

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Ready to go. Maria Royal with Legislative Counsel. I'm now sharing my screen. So this is draft 1.13. And I've highlighted the new revisions, Everything else that wasn't rejected or has been incorporated, and then the items that were still to be determined are still to be determined. A couple things I just wanted to mention. There are some kind of drafting things that I noted for clarity, which I'll point out, and then you let me know if they make sense to you. And then also, just to let you know the items that judiciary is working on, The provisions that have to do with the debtor disclosing the identity of the perpetrator, trying to get a better handle on that. And if there are situations where a court might compel a debtor to disclose the information to the creditor. And then also the procedures in a civil action about when a judge can take protective measures, sealing records and removing and so on. And one more, the statute of limitations with respect to a creditor's right to sue, trying to tighten that up a little bit. So those are in process. So with that, there was actually a question that came up in judiciary about whether or not you needed to specify that the report, the law enforcement report, is actually an official valid report. I think the answer is no. If it's not valid, you're not gonna have a very good claim, and it's inherently official. So I think you're okay not specifying that. This next change on '13, this is actually something that I'm suggesting, provided it doesn't change the substance. Because you remember that you had those two separate subdivisions, a police report and then this section, but they're very similar, so you kind of collapse them into one subdivision a. And so the way it reads, I don't know if you need that language that's proposed to be stricken here, if that's redundant with what comes next? So a copy of a report filed with a federal, state, or local law enforcement agency that identifies the coerced debt and the circumstances under which the coerced debt was incurred. I don't know if you need to have that kinda lead in language that the report is regarding the debtors claim of coerced debt, but if you disagree, no problem putting it back in. The other again, this is a suggestion on line 19. It's just striking the word written so that throughout the document, you're just referring to a sworn certification, and then in the definition, it specifies that it's written. It just seems less wordy. And then also, the third party professional regarding the debtor's claim of course debt, based on information gathered by the third party while acting in their professional capacity. I think you can delete this, because under that certification, it says, I certify that in my professional capacity, I met in person or in Zoom and made a professional deter so I I think it might be redundant, not necessary. You can mull it over. And then, similarly, there was some language added to the definition of debtor, which I think can be just collapsed into this definition of coerced debt. Maybe we'll go to the debtor definition first. So, originally, you had a debtor means a person who owes forced debt and is a survivor of domestic abuse or a vulnerable adult who is a survivor of abuse, neglect or exploitation. There was a provision added here saying, And the coerced debt was incurred as a result of the domestic abuse human trafficking. That to me seemed more applicable in the definition of coerced debt. So that and that the real language difference was the as result of so I think if you incorporate it here, forced debt means all or or a portion of secured or unsecured debt solely or jointly in a debtor's name that was incurred as a result of domestic abuse, human trafficking, or the abuse, neglect or exploitation of a vulnerable adult and the perpetrator's use of the information or use of threat or force. So I think I think that works. Let me know if it doesn't. On line 12, there was a suggestion just to delete that language about the debt with not being subject to a default judgment. And just leave if, you know, it's not course debt if it was subject to a final judgment where the court actually adjudicated the issue of course debt. So we already went over the proposed changes in the definition of debtor. Oh, another change. It would be a lot simpler to just refer to perpetrator throughout the bill, rather than perpetrator of coerced debt. You'll notice, though, that under this definition, perpetrator means an individual who causes or is alleged to have caused, And that's significant, particularly in the civil remedies that you're talking about an alleged perpetrator, but it's already incorporated in the definition. So just depends on the context.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Yeah.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: I'd like to make sure I understand.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yep.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: An individual thinking here, better, how we describe as a vulnerable adult who survived abuse, neglect, exploitation, as those terms are defined. The way those terms are defined does not prevent a person from being considered a vulnerable adult if the perpetration is alleged.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Not sure.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: Does the perpetration the perpetrator is someone who is alleged to have caused or caused you know, there's an it can be it could be an allegation.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's the claim that they're making is that

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: And it's you can be defined as a vulnerable adult when if the allegation is just an allegation. Because that's what I'm just trying to make sure that there's that the definition of a debtor who is a survivor of something, can the thing still be alleged if the person is known to be a survivor? Can you be a survivor of an alleged act? That's all I'm

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: trying Oh, I see what you're saying. Well, I

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: I don't know if 33 BSA is Maybe they treat of that in a way that I'm

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: just that term survivor. Yeah. That what

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: you're most likely- He's just wondering how that when we were giving cover to an allegation, think we're looking for proving something, and I'm wondering if the definition

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: of I survivorship think I understand your point. I think that would come out in a legal process if that were being disputed. There was no domestic violence. There was no abuse of a vulnerable adult. Like, think, is that what you're getting Like, that could be argued as a

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: Yeah. Hope is just that a survivor wouldn't end up having the cart before the horse because of It's like, well, this has to be shown under 33 BSA 69, but the perpetrator's only alleged, and I'm basically wanna leave survivors.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's a good point. I might be missing something, but I think it kind of all comes together, but I'm not Yeah, yeah, I'll mull it over to you, and maybe someone else can help clarify that. Oh, this next change on lines eleven and twelve. This was a suggestion actually from judiciary, followed by third party professional means. Any of the following individuals who do not have a conflict of interest. Then, with respect to subdivision C on line 15, I believe Representative Graning, you raised issue of whether a licensed social worker or a clinical mental health counselor is considered, you'll see on the top of page four, a healthcare provider, and the answer is yes. So, maybe not a reason to call them out specifically, because they're already under that broad definition. What would be left here is a crisis worker, employed at a program that assists vulnerable adults or survivors of domestic violence or human trafficking, and who has relevant training or experience.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: Just so I'm understanding, so the crisis worker has to be employed at a program in order to be able to provide services. So I guess what I'm wondering is if you have somebody who is licensed but not employed, or if you have some Yeah. If somebody is a certified clinical social worker and registered first responder or first mandated reporter or something like that?

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, a social worker would fall under the healthcare provider.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: That would fall But healthcare I guess maybe I'm thinking more of mandated reporters.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And I don't know if crisis workers are mandated reporters. They might be under their definition. There was

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: All the mandated reporters are teachers.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right. And there was a request that for crisis workers, they be employed at a program. You're right that you could be a volunteer, but that's a policy question.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Can I have a little more information here? So the list of qualified third party professionals is the list of people who can certify the official documents. And so that's why it's limited in order to come to an agreement with the lending institutions. Okay, I understand. Very clear on who is eligible. But that wouldn't necessarily preclude the person from seeking treatment. Oh, I'm

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: sorry, no, not at all. Oh, so this is just having to do with the disclosure or nondisclosure of the perpetrator's name. So I'm just making a note that this is something judiciary should be looking at a little bit further. And then there was a suggestion made last time you took testimony that a statement of coerced debt by the debtor shall be notarized or shall include the self declaration. So just adding another option as opposed to just signing under penalty of perjury. That was a request for your consideration. And then here you'll see just striking out written and sworn certification, but including it as part of the definition. Slide 16. And so, again, just to clarify the connection, the relationship between the third party professional and the debtor, I am a qualified third party professional who has had in person contact or face to face contact through an electronic medium with the debtor, based on my professional interactions with the debtor and information presented to me in my professional capacity. So I think it covers everything that had been included before. So then Okay. So now we're getting into this section about creditor's conduct once they've been presented with the statement and the documentation. And one of the things I've been trying to ensure is that the process here, in terms of the creditor's duties with respect to information that's in a credit report. That what you had here is consistent with the federal requirements. Under the federal requirements, the creditor has thirty calendar days, which is why I propose striking business days here. However, they when it's only five days on line 11, they specify it's five business days. So this is just consistent with what's required, and I think you're preempted from changing that time period. Again, these are the the creditor, and this instance is the furnisher of information to the credit bureaus when they're directly in receipt of a dispute about an account, it triggers this time period. They have to notify the credit reporting agencies that the account is being disputed, and then, again, if they determine that, in fact, the information in the report is inaccurate. But this is all controlled by federal law.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Sure. So I'm thinking about, I think in subsequent meeting, we added the term sworn to the statement, of course, dad. I take that judiciary later on when you got the actual form for, I think that's what it is, added in the word motorized or?

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh, that was actually a suggestion that came up in this committee from, I think, legal aid. They wanted to provide the option. It could be notarized or it could be the self attestation in lieu of a notary.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Right. I'm I'm just wondering whether the notarization covers the same purpose as being sworn.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It is. It it can be either or. But I think they wanted it to be an option, like, so you don't have to get it notarized.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: Yeah.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Does does the notary hold that person to the same accountability as them swearing to it? Is that your question?

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Yeah. I might have this wrong, but I always understood notaries are as affirming that you are here we are, as opposed to affirming that the statement is true. So I may be mad at this. I just wondered about that. Whether notarization is being used to substitute for the being switched.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I see what you're saying.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: Maybe think about it.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, let me just see. I'm just wondering if there was any other

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: If they're notarizing the person saying that they're a qualified third party professional who believes this, I is that the hear you, I hear you, I'm not sure.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This is for the statement of the debtor.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Right. So,

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: yeah. That's a good point. It's true. They're not attesting to the accuracy of the information. So yeah. Good point.

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: On that, I mean, we talk about vulnerable adults and things like that and children. Are they because in some contract law, I mean, you may not be qualified to make your own decisions. Like a child under 18, any contract with them is unenforceable.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: if you have a vulnerable adult who may not be mentally capable of making those decisions, how they self swear when they're not?

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. I I think that's a great point, but I'm guessing the law provides for that. You can have a guardian or airtickets act

[Rep. Herb Olson]: on

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: your behalf for legal purposes, but that would already be so I can check with Michelle and see. I mean, she handles more, but I'm pretty certain, just like a parent would naturally be able to sign on behalf of it. I think that there are provisions so that they can legally enter into contracts even if they have a disability or other vulnerability.

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: Now is there any issue where that guardian or parent could be the perpetrator? And how is that

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: handled? Sure. That's boy possible.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Just say third party.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right? Yeah.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: So There's a bigger there's a list of qualified third party.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right. Right. So there's you'd need the third party or a police report. So would they go in and say, I am the perpetrator, and I'm bringing this claim on behalf of my you know? Right? Mhmm. I mean, it's which isn't to say there might not I don't know what people would have thought. Yeah. So, still to be determined, the creditor's response once they've done their general investigation as they're required to do and made a determination. I'll just go back a little bit here. Line 11. So within five business days of making a determination under Subsection C, the creditor shall notify the debtor of such determination in writing and shall provide a good faith basis for the determination, including identification of the evidence relied upon, and specifying that the notice shall not include personally identifiable information of another person. And then, if the creditor determines the disputed debt is coerced debt, the creditor shall notify the debtor that it is ceasing collection activities and contact any consumer reporting agencies to which it furnished adverse information about the debtor's coerced debt and request that such information be deleted from the debtor's file and credit report. If the creditor determines that the available information does not establish that the disputed debt is coerced debt, you have some options to be decided. They can resume or recommence collection activities, at which point it would be up to the debtor, if the debtor wanted to pursue the matter further, going to court, seeking a declaratory judgment, the finding that it is coerced debt. Or they could resume collection activities, but not sell or transfer the debt, so they would have to maintain the debt in the event that there is ongoing legal actions. Or they could cease all collection activities, and then it would be upon them, if they wanted to enforce collection, to go to court. There are probably other options, but these are just three for your consideration.

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Can you explain the benefit of not selling or transferring the debt? I assume that's so that it doesn't hurt another entity. Or

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, if they did if they were to sell it if if there is an account or debt in dispute, they I think they have to notice provide notice to any entity who takes over the debt. I think this is more so that the original parties who are already involved, who have done the investigating, are still the original parties. It's not going.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Okay.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So this is the form that's provided to the debtor. Either they get it off of the CFR's website or from the creditor. I just made a couple of notes about things that are going to need to true up with whatever you decide about the collections. And then just some clarifying language regarding the supporting documentation. Again, this is just in the form which is going to prepare. Please include at least one of the documents, which is also specified below, but just to make it very clear. And then this other language just tracks decisions that were made in the definition section for the definition of crisis worker. No other intentional changes. Again, just a note more for myself to make sure that the form matches with whatever you decide. There was a request in terms of the notice. So if the creditor decides to cease collection and request that any adverse information be removed from their credit report, they can view that. But if they are not convinced that it's forced it, it says that they have the right to challenge your claim of forced debt in court. And there was, I was talking to Representative Graning about some notification that the debtors have legal protections themselves. So that's all this is saying. It says, yes, the creditor cannot try to enforce in court, subject to legal protections for victims of divorce debt. How much detail you want here. I don't know. But at least put it's meant to put them on notice that there are some protections. And then, again, just this that the statement is either notarized or certified as true and accurate, whatever, however you decide. I think

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: it's really your statement, your signed statement is notarized. Because it's really, I think Herb is right, that I think your signature is what gets notarized. Yes. It's you.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes. Yes.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: But they're not certifying as to the accuracy of what's in stock in.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Right.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So these are the civil legal remedies, and these are kind of the issues that judiciary is working on. And then so I didn't note every instance where I changed perpetrator of forced fifth perpetrator. This is one of the proposals they're considering with respect to the statute of limitations for a creditor. They've not seen this language yet. Just to give you a sense of what they're thinking, so an action by a creditor against a perpetrator shall be commenced within six years after the date the creditor received the debtor's statement of coarse debt and adequate documentation, or received notice of the identity of the perpetrator, whichever is later. I think those are all of the coerced debt amendments. And the only other thing that I had made you you had some concerns about the third party contact under this is under the suspicious banking suspicious transactions, banking holds about who a bank could contact. I didn't make any changes there. But what I did note think judiciary representative, Benning, noted that, you know, this is that so the authority to delay a transaction under this section expires at the earlier of fifteen days after which after the date on which the covered entity initiated the delay, when the covered entity is satisfied within its sole discretion that the transaction will not result in financial exploitation or upon a court order directing the release of funds, both in I think in this instance, and then, relatedly, the second one is that it's not likely a court would be able to do anything within fifteen days. So trying to determine if this actually was necessary to include. But I highlighted it. Not sure if it's necessary. And then effective dates, just highlighted no changes. But it had been written wrong. I was looking at the earlier draft, so just noting that that was cleaned up. So this section, the effective date, complaints regarding claims of identity theft, that's a technical change. We haven't really talked about that, but it's in the existing law under the Fair Credit Reporting Act that specifies you can report identity theft claims. It just had the wrong didn't have the complete cross reference to the identity theft crime. So that would take effect immediately, as well as the suspicious banking transaction language and DFR's report on suspicious banking transactions. So the section one, the coerced debt, creditor conduct, civil legal remedies, and then the duty of credit reporting agencies to reinvestigate, those would all take effect 07/01/2028, and again shall apply to all outstanding course debt, including debt incurred prior to 07/01/2028.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: According

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: to Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, if a debtor in writing requests no more communication, that means that the entity is no longer to communicate anymore except for by a court order or what have you, is that correct?

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'd have to look,

[Rep. Herb Olson]: I can look. I'm pretty sure,

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: unless it's changed in the last twenty five years, once a letter is received by whatever collector, they are not allowed to contact the the debtor anymore, which changes if the the account changes hands. It starts the process all over again. So if I have a debt on Abbey, you send me a letter, I no longer can communicate with you. Then I give it to Herb. Herb can start sending you letters. That's the way that I understand. Yeah, because I'm selling the debt. So when we're talking about those three options, would think that in order to avoid that process of sorry, I'm not moving fast.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: I was thinking

[Rep. Herb Olson]: out loud. In order to

[Rep. Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: avoid that process of passing around the debt so that you can do the collections in that way, I think the creditor maintaining the debt is definitely an option that we should consider if that's the way that the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act works.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And I'll try to find out while other testimony is going on. Somebody knows the answer. Yeah, they may know if it's a Any Any other questions for me?

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Question for you or for other folks. I'm good. It's one of the times we've taken testimony, we've been talking about those three options. And I think it was a legal aid attorney, but maybe it was someone else talked about, if you're gonna go with allowing the creditor to resume collection activities, I think she was she talked anyway about additional sort of sort of credibility criteria. In other words, what the the creditor would have to show to make a good faith determination that they had justified it in, collect that, the museum collection. Did anyone get in touch with you about that? I just didn't know

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: if Yeah.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Didn't see it first.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No. No. You're right. That did come up. I did I talked with representative Green a little bit about that, and, you know, you're you're he certainly My recollection is right. Your recollection is spot on.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: We're still trying to figure it out.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: Yeah.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: I'm wondering if there is a certain amount of time that creditor would have to hold on to the debt before it gets sold to a collection agency. So that it gives time for the debtor to determine where they wanna go, what do they wanna do, would they wanna go to court? Option three. Well, I think you can wrap that into option one. Right? That What? Where there's there's a certain amount of time that they would have to hold on to it. Something to talk about, I guess.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Just to be clear, I'm not expressing preference.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: No, no, I understand, I'm wondering, you know, after this period of not, I mean, I think making a determination that it's not coerced, that is a huge high bar for creditor to me. And I think, and I would almost doubt that there's gonna be any that are going to meet that bar where they're saying, no, this is not a match yet.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Is there any independent third party that is not a court? I it's really

[Rep. Herb Olson]: have to think that

[Gay Gordon-Byrne, The Repair Association (repair.org)]: We all

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: same wavelength. Working for an arbiter. Right, an orbiter, because the options are very good.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: You know, again, I think it's what we're saying needs to be provided to the creditor in order to make the determination that helps the creditor understand if it is coerced dead or not coerced death. She's on the list.

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: Thank you. The side and assimilation, potentially on the same lines, I'm curious about when the debtor makes this statement of course that provides the material, if that material is not complete, is there a back and forth between the deader and

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: the cutter? Is that there? Okay. Sorry, I couldn't find it.

[Maria Royal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh, shoot. Sorry. Where am I? Oh, Gotta keep going. This section. I'll get there. It's subsection B. So subsection a is you've submitted. B is if the Feder notifies a creditor but does not provide all the information required under subsection a or provides the information orally as required to be written. And assuming that the creditor does not then just decide to cease collection activities anyway on its own, Then within ten days ten business days of the initial receipt of the information, the notice, the creditor shall inform the debtor that additional written information is required and shall provide the debtor with model form a one, which is the Yeah. No. No. Sure.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Any other questions for Marie? Thank you, Marie. Sure.

[Harley Blisserman, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence]: Afternoon.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Good afternoon.

[Harley Blisserman, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence]: Harley Blisserman. I'm the policy director at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Thank you for having me in today and for your thoughtful work on this bill. I was reflecting this morning on just how it's been a pleasure to spend more time in this committee and support your work on a really important piece of legislation.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: So

[Harley Blisserman, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence]: there are a couple policy questions that I want to speak to. But before I do that, this may be the last opportunity I have to testify before you all vote on this. I wanna reflect back on the purpose of this bill, which is to provide meaningful relief to survivors of abuse who would otherwise remain saddled with debt that is not their own. And it is designed to offer a process that's accessible to survivors and that is different than what's available to them in the status quo, so not forcing them to proactively bring a legal action to access relief. So with that purpose in mind, I want to speak to the big outstanding decision that this committee has that will, in many ways, determine whether the goal of this bill is really realized. And that's the decision about whether a creditor would need to bring a legal action to recommence debt collection after receiving a claim from a victim, or whether they can make that determination on their own and resume collection without any external check. And without a court action, a creditor will make that decision internally. And if they don't accept a victim's claim of coarse debt, the victim's option is to proactively initiate a lawsuit to access relief. And that is technically the option that victims have today, but that is not accessible in practice to survivors. Predators regularly bring court action in collection matters, and

[Unidentified Committee Member]: this

[Harley Blisserman, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence]: is really not the case for survivors of forced debt, the vast majority of whom do not have legal representation. So we feel that this external check is critically important to ensure that the debtor, the victim, and the creditor use this bill as intended, and that when there is a true dispute about the validity of a core stat claim, that that final decision goes to an external decision maker. And I do think that the appropriate external decision maker for that is a civil court. If the committee makes that decision, I know, Representative Olson, you noted this question around additional documentation provided by a creditor when disputing a claim. I don't think that that kind of additional documentation would be needed if there was that external decision maker, the civil court making a determination beyond the language that is already included in this latest draft. I think the court process itself would provide that very important procedural safeguard. I have just recently reviewed this draft, and there are really just one thing that's kind of catching my eye around the changes to third party professional definition in this latest draft. I admittedly am still wrapping my head around the impact of those changes, but I can certainly take a look. If there's anything that we feel is needed to change, I'm happy to provide some language for your consideration by tomorrow. I also wanted to note on the question of a statement that's either a victim's statement of coarse debt either being notarized or sworn under the pains and penalties of perjury. From my perspective, we're comfortable having all statements of coarse debt signed under the pains and penalties of perjury as opposed to having all documents requiring a notary. Getting a document notarized is just more onerous for a survivor, and we feel very comfortable having them certifying to the direct accuracy of the statement, which could provide greater security to the creditor, so for your consideration. I will also note that we've been working with the House Judiciary Committee as well as Maria and Michelle Childs on some helpful revisions, I think, to the civil legal remedy section to clarify how a civil legal process would work in cases where one is pursued. And they're discussing this language in committee tomorrow afternoon, and we also appreciate their work. I wanted to thank you again for your thoughtful work on this bill and your commitment to supporting survivors in rebuilding their lives after abuse. It is greatly appreciated, I would be happy to speak to any of these points in more detail or answer any questions.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Carolyn? So I will say that I think there's been a good collaborative effort going on between your organization, legal aid and our financial institutions. I think there's a fine line that we need to walk here. And I just wanted on the record that, and again, this is something that Chris has said and Carrie has said as well, they haven't, the financial institutions haven't done anything wrong. They're not the perpetrator. They are at the table and have given in a lot. And I don't believe that financial institution, whether they're in Vermont or they're outside of Vermont, will go at, after getting the affidavits and everything, will say that this is not Cora's debt, and I think they're taking on secured debt as well, So there's gonna be debt that's gonna get written off. I think the main part to this whole thing is to make sure that people are having people coerce them into creating this debt, have their credit cleaned up so that they can go out and get loans, so that it doesn't sit on your record. I think that's the biggest and main issue here. But also the debt that they may have to carry. Hopefully at some point, financial institutions can go after the perpetrator, because that's where the whole problem is with the perpetrator. So I'm really struggling on, you know, looking at forcing the creditor to have to go to court. I know that they do it all the time. But I think in this instance, if they're coming in and saying it's not court's debt and they found something that's really troubling to them, that it could be fraud. And to have a look back, far back do we think is a problem too. So those are two pieces that I'm struggling with, of whether or not I can support the bill now.

[Harley Blisserman, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence]: Okay. Well, I appreciate your transparency. And one thing that I've also been struggling with as I've been thinking about this process and what it balanced, what is fair, is the reality that if a survivor is bringing a statement of course debt and there is not agreement about whether that is course debt or not, that will mean that to move forward, someone is going to have to bring a court action. And so the question then is who is best positioned to bring that court action? And you've heard from Vermont Legal Aid, you will likely hear again from the National Consumer Law Center, how survivors are really not well positioned to bring a lawsuit against a financial institution. They do not have legal representation or resources or information about how to go about that. And I think Legal Aid and Vermont Network, we wish that we could provide legal representation to every survivor who needed it so they could access relief. And we don't have the resources to do that. So that is why I think it is really important to have the structure as I described. And I know that the House Judiciary Committee is taking a look at the civil legal remedies section, and that includes, you know, real details around how how does this play out in court? And another committee looking at, is this going to be a balanced and fair process? Does that take into consideration the realities that both the survivor and the creditor are facing? And I also wonder, perhaps Andrea from National Consumer Law Center, who's speaking after you, could share anything from other states around, has this external check been needed? What has it looked like? So that we can learn from those experiences as well as you're weighing out this decision.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Other questions for Chair? Thank you very much.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Thank you so much. It's nice to see all of you again. Carrie Allen from the Association of Vermont Credit Unions. I'd like to echo the sentiment of what we've already heard. This has been a very collaborative process, and credit unions have been really appreciative to have had a seat at the table. We want there to be meaningful relief for victims of domestic violence, human trafficking, for adults that are in vulnerable positions and may be exploited. We see in credit unions around the state of Vermont how the impact on bad relationships and, you know, friendships gone awry as Grace shared a story about her client that was exploited in an auto loan. We see instances of those in credit unions, and they can have a significant long term impact on someone's credit report and ultimately then an impact on their financial stability. And we want this to be a bill that is helpful to moving forward and finding more financial empowerment for Vermonters. And we appreciate having been a part of the process. And there have been challenges where we may not all be in agreement, and I think we are much closer than where we may have started to finding a fair and balanced bill. I think the point of discussion that was most recently brought, by chair Marcotte and by Charlie, is this identification of what were to happen in the case of a statement and all of the documentation being reviewed and a belief that this was not accurate as defined by this bill, and what would be the next steps. And I think to chairman Marcotte's point, I find it hard to believe there will be instances where credit unions in the state of Vermont would feel confident in suggesting this was a false statement unless we had proof of fraud. I think to go against a victim would be highly, highly unlikely, and we would not want to air. We would air on the side of caution because we certainly wouldn't wanna be in a position where we were misbelieving someone who actually was a victim. So I find it very unlikely that there would be many instances where credit unions would actually dispute a claim of course debt. I think the documentation as well as the third party qualifiers would make it highly unlikely that a real and authentic course debt claim would be disputed by credit unions. I heard Grace and the Vermont legal aid's concern last week that there may be debt collectors that might have different practices. But as far as Vermont credit unions would stand, I really feel that it would be highly unlikely that there would be instances where we made a claim that this was not, in fact, worst debt and pursued legal action unless we believed it was a fraudulent claim. That being said, if it was determined that the statement and the documentation provided did not meet the definition of course date debt as provided by this bill, then our position would be that, therefore, it wouldn't qualify for relief so creditors should have the ability to commence recollection. Right? That would be our position. Now to your point, we would certainly be agreeable to say that we would not sell or transfer the debt to a collection or third party. We we certainly could agree to that. But we would ask you to consider either one or two in moving forward to allow us to pursue what we would ultimately believe was a fraudulent claim.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: If you determine through your investigation that it was a fraudulent claim, I mean, that point, wouldn't you also turn it over to law enforcement prosecution?

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Yeah, likely. Absolutely.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Yeah, absolutely.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Can you talk a little bit about good faith basis and what that looks like? And just for the context, it's on page eight, line 13, and this is what we're asking the financial institutions to provide if they deem it not to be coerced yet. So can you

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Yeah, and I think at this point it says evidence. Is that correct? I thought it said evidence.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Which page?

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Page eight, lines 11 to 15, and it says, The creditor shall notify the debtor of such determination in writing and shall provide a good faith basis for the determination. So it says including identification of the evidence.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: So it's

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: identifying what it is. But I'm just curious, what is a good faith basis? I

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: think part of our concern, and I've heard it last week, and Charlie referenced it today, is the possibility of providing a similar level of evidence to the statement of course debt. And I I think that would be really challenging for a financial institution to provide because it's likely that what we would have would potentially be a legal contract. And so it would need to be highly redacted to not include personal identifying information. Or perhaps it could be an employee statement who took the loan application and was a party to the transaction. And again, that would include personal identifying information that would be hard to share in a public setting. And so I think it would be challenging to provide that level of documentation back to a debtor. But I can imagine that if we were to say, for example I'm making this up. But let's imagine we were to say those aren't the parties that were there when that loan transaction happened, and they're the ones making the claim of course debt. If we had an employee saying that, then that would be a fraudulent claim that we would then investigate and move forward. So for us, that might be a good faith basis, but we wouldn't necessarily wanna share that with the debtor in writing. Does that make sense? It's hard to understand.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: If I was asking for relief from coerced debt, would a letter back to me saying your claim for coerced debt has been denied, is that a good faith basis? Or could it be, is there more to it? I truly don't understand what we're asking is in good faith basis. And I'm wondering if we need to ask that in a different way.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Yeah. And I think I'll go back to my original statement. I find it hard to believe that credit unions would, on its face, say, we don't believe this statement. That there would have to be information potentially that a Social Security showed up on a credit report as being suspicious. It didn't align with something that we had documentation. Perhaps a statement on didn't align with the documentation. We needed to do additional review and research. But I find it very unlikely that we would just say, we don't believe this. That just doesn't seem reasonable to the ways credit unions practice today. And to Charlie's point, you know, there would be a legal remedy for that.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: I'm still stuck in because we have our Vermont institutions that we know and have relationships with, and so many loans are with e finance companies and And other if the way we have it written gives them the ability to just say, no, we're denying your claim, I'm not sure we've done enough to protect.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I agree. I agree. To understand how

[Rep. Emily Carris Duncan]: I agree with that lane.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: I agree. And and in my position today representing Vermont Credit Unions, I'm telling you that I'm asking for, you know, us to find fair and balanced, but I agree, and I understand. And we certainly will move forward with whatever this committee decides. We want meaningful relief. We recognize, and we don't wanna put hurdles that make it impossible to find relief. And so we hear you. One of the things that I thought potentially is some type of a form that indicated a reason why maybe it didn't meet the criteria for course debt that the creditor then needed to return. But we heard Grace share that in her experience with mortgage relief, that isn't always necessarily helpful as well. So I'm not sure that's meaningful, but I hear your concern. I understand. I can say credit unions wouldn't do that, but I can't speak on behalf of everyone.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thank you.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: Jonathan, what is the occupation of the person within a credit union who would be doing that work?

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: The review. Is that what you mean?

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: Yeah, the person who'd be making this determination, is that a adjuster? What's that occupation?

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Likely it's someone who works in the compliance department, which is somebody who has a significant level of training and certification annually and would work regularly with law enforcement, often would get called to speak by subpoena to speak in cases of either victim abuse or elder abuse.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: I was

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: wondering if there are guardrails around how those individuals conduct their work that would help us understand what a good faith basis is. It's like they're not going to go through garbage. They're not hounding people on social media. I'm just wondering what

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: their work is like. Where they're not going

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: to look here or there. That's obviously if that maybe help me flush this out a bit.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: And credit unions participation, yeah, I believe we can safely say that's not going to happen. But, yeah, I understand what you're suggesting that perhaps we can put some guardrails around it. And certainly and I made this comment in terms of the transaction holds and and and hope that we have a chance to discuss that. But we would, as credit unions, we have regular training for all our staff on many regulations that are required through federal banking laws. And we also would welcome additional training and guidance, whether it be through the network or through Vermont Counseling on Aging or agencies to provide some guardrails around what that good faith review looked like.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: One

[Rep. Anthony "Tony" Micklus]: more of a curiosity question. So isn't there a mechanism for debt forgiveness just in general? Like, say I go and I rack up a credit card for $100,000 I lose my job. Is there a mechanism there? I know it is with some banks where someone can go in and say, hey, I can't pay this debt. And then there's a process that you can go through to get some of that forgiven. And I bring it up because I'm wondering, can we look at how that is done, and can that help us with some of the guidelines on the poorest debt?

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: There are several different mechanisms. So for example, a borrower could potentially buy a debt protection that if they lost their job, the debt protection would kick in and help to pay off the balance. There's something like that. You may be referring to what we often see advertised on television where people can work agencies to help negotiate on their behalf. And, traditionally, what that is would be when it's sold to a third party, they're agreeing to take a portion of the payment as opposed to the whole. So in lieu of, you know, not collecting anything, a collection agency may say, well, I'll collect a third of your balance. But generically speaking, there's no we just forget it.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: I just didn't know.

[Harley Blisserman, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: I I mean, absolutely. Do banks and credit unions charge off losses every single day? Yes. Yes.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: One would your scenario is that it stays on your credit report for seven years, so that means you probably won't get along. Your credit score is gonna tank, and you're gonna have a hard time for seven years.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Yes. Because even when an agreement is reached, it's not it shows on your credit report differently than if you paid as agreed. Mhmm.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Yeah. So thanks very much for your testimony because it really helped clarify. I think it got damned in the middle of what the issue was. And I appreciate your statement. I heard correctly that you wouldn't want to condemn this action on the debt unless you had proof of fraud and evidence of proof of fraud. So that was very helpful in terms of clarity. And I guess then my Then it's So how do you show that evidence? Right? Yeah. So I hear your concerns. I'm also thinking that the debtor has already made their situation there, you know, in terms of some of these sensitive kinds of things. It'd be really nice to know, you know, if the creditor is saying, hey, I really think this is something valuable, and here is why I think so. I'm hearing you reluctant to say that, putting in writing that next step.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Am I right?

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Well, I think it would put us in a position that we would potentially expose something in writing that we don't necessarily have permission to expose to a third party?

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: What do you mean by convictions?

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: Well, for example, if we were to believe that a perpetrator was involved in this claim, we wouldn't want to accuse someone without a judgment of that perpetrator.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: You identify who he's talking about, but you could still, I shouldn't go any further.

[Rep. Jonathan Cooper]: I could think of things, I could imagine ways to get around that thinking.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: But I think that's my concern is

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: I'm that they're

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: afraid that to meaningfully provide evidence back, it would have to be so significantly redacted that it might not be helpful anyway

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Okay. I get this. Thank you.

[Carrie Allen, Association of Vermont Credit Unions]: In order to protect every part party involved. Yeah. That being said, it's it's not there are several states that have course debt laws in place that are, allowing creditors to recommence collection. Both California and New York allow that in their coarse debt laws after a review period. They, of course, allow the opportunity for the debtor to go to court if, you know, they wanna continue to pursue this. But I I guess one thing I I will leave you with, the way this is being positioned is victims against financial institutions. And I just wanna go on record. Credit unions wanna find meaningful relief for victims. We absolutely are not trying to suggest that we want to make it any harder than authentic victims to find relief. Our concern is the bad actors who may exploit this bill to their own benefit. And we just wanna make sure that we sort of close all the potential loopholes for those bad actors. We are not asking to make it harder for victims to prove that they need relief. We agree. They deserve relief.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Yeah. Certainly don't wanna tip someone off that is trying to commit fraud. The evidence that you've had. Right? And so, you know, I'm just thinking of what are the scenarios that would have a financial institution determine that it's not coerced debt. It's either insufficient evidence or they find fraud, they found fraud. And so, when it's insufficient, they're just gonna kick it back and say, We don't have enough information. Didn't provide enough information, give us more. The other piece is going to be we're going to call law enforcement and we're going to have this taken a look at. I don't know if there's another scenario.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: Well, there be a scenario where there's a gray area

[Unidentified Committee Member]: in terms

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: of maybe it's not enough information? The statement of court court doesn't include some kind of a third party analysis.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: K. We're being accomplished for so I think we have this on yeah. For Friday. Yes. So we look like Chris Smith's Senate Finance, he's still there. And we also had someone else that wanted to testify as well. Andrea, we can invite a guest to Friday. Okay. Let's see if we can narrow it to Friday. Andrea, thank you. Sorry, we couldn't get to you.

[Andrea Bopp Stark, National Consumer Law Center]: Oh, you're closing the hearing?

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: We have to go to the floor now.

[Andrea Bopp Stark, National Consumer Law Center]: Oh, okay. So please refer to my written testimony. I did submit written testimony.

[Rep. Herb Olson]: Great.

[Andrea Bopp Stark, National Consumer Law Center]: And I have a lot to say about what you were talking about today. If anyone wants to reach out to me and connect with me, I'm happy to do that as well.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Okay. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Sorry we couldn't get to you.

[Andrea Bopp Stark, National Consumer Law Center]: All right. Thank you.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: Thank you. So committee, we're back on again tomorrow at nine. We're gonna take a look at 06:50, which is the educational technology products bill, and then we're gonna have more conversations on CTE at 10:30 with AOE.

[Vice Chair Edye Graning]: There'll be a new version of six fifty before between now and then.

[Chair Michael Marcotte]: And we'll take a look at h two eleven point one two. Okay. So with that, we can go up