republic-os/legislation/us/states/de/152/sb-8.md

---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 6 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO MEDICAL DEBT."
description: "This Act is the second substitute for Senate Bill No. 8. Like Senate Bill No. 8 and its first substitute, this Act protects patients from unfair debt collection practices for medical debt, including prohibiting large health care facilities from charging interest and late fees, requiring facilities to offer reasonable payment plans, limiting the sale of debt to debt collectors unless an agreement is made to keep protections in place, providing minimum time before certain collections actions may be taken, limiting liability for the medical debt of others, and preventing the reporting of medical debt to consumer credit reporting agencies for at least one year after the debt was incurred. Violations of the provisions of this Act are considered Prohibited Trade Practices and Consumer Fraud violations. Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill No. 8 differed from Senate Bill No. 8 as it required large health-care facilities to provide information to uninsured patients regarding eligibility and the application process for medical assistance. This information must be provided at the time of service or prior to discharge and again with each billing statement. It also created a minimum threshold for eligibility for payment plans, and it reduced the timeframe in which a bill under a payment plan may be first due. The first substitute also defined “medical assistance” and “time of service,” which were not defined in Senate Bill No. 8."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "152"
identifier: "SB 8"
citation: "Delaware SB 8 (152)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Brian Pettyjohn", "Bryan Townsend", "Eric Morrison", "Kendra Johnson", "Madinah Wilson-Anton", "Nicole Poore", "Peter C. Schwartzkopf", "Russell Huxtable", "Sarah McBride", "Sean Matthews", "Sherry Dorsey Walker", "Spiros Mantzavinos", "Valerie Longhurst", "William Bush"]
version_count: 3
action_count: 11
vote_count: 3
first_action: "2023-06-13"
last_action: "2023-09-11"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/42c4b0ea-4a76-4f6f-8074-86c7aa19671b"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=140603"
source_hash: "f4424ad193ddde6661fc020a2e87738b607f255c4ac8c2eaa910da0267333693"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware SB 8 (152) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 6 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO MEDICAL DEBT.

This Act is the second substitute for Senate Bill No. 8. Like Senate Bill No. 8 and its first substitute, this Act protects patients from unfair debt collection practices for medical debt, including prohibiting large health care facilities from charging interest and late fees, requiring facilities to offer reasonable payment plans, limiting the sale of debt to debt collectors unless an agreement is made to keep protections in place, providing minimum time before certain collections actions may be taken, limiting liability for the medical debt of others, and preventing the reporting of medical debt to consumer credit reporting agencies for at least one year after the debt was incurred. Violations of the provisions of this Act are considered Prohibited Trade Practices and Consumer Fraud violations. Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill No. 8 differed from Senate Bill No. 8 as it required large health-care facilities to provide information to uninsured patients regarding eligibility and the application process for medical assistance. This information must be provided at the time of service or prior to discharge and again with each billing statement. It also created a minimum threshold for eligibility for payment plans, and it reduced the timeframe in which a bill under a payment plan may be first due. The first substitute also defined “medical assistance” and “time of service,” which were not defined in Senate Bill No. 8.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=140603&legislationTypeId=6&docTypeId=2&legislationName=SS2forSB8)
2. **HA 1 to SS 2 for SB 8** (committee substitute) — [source](http://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GeneratePdfDocument?legislationId=140768&legislationTypeId=5&docTypeId=2)
3. **SA 1 to SS 2 for SB 8** (committee substitute) — [source](http://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GeneratePdfDocument?legislationId=140616&legislationTypeId=5&docTypeId=2)

## Votes

- SM — **20–0** (pass) · upper
- SM — **21–0** (pass) · upper
- SM — **25–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- Brian Pettyjohn — primary (person)
- Bryan Townsend — primary (person)
- Eric Morrison — primary (person)
- Kendra Johnson — primary (person)
- Madinah Wilson-Anton — primary (person)
- Nicole Poore — primary (person)
- Peter C. Schwartzkopf — primary (person)
- Russell Huxtable — primary (person)
- Sarah McBride — primary (person)
- Sean Matthews — primary (person)
- Sherry Dorsey Walker — primary (person)
- Spiros Mantzavinos — primary (person)
- Valerie Longhurst — primary (person)
- William Bush — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2023-06-13** was introduced and adopted in lieu of SB 8 `introduction`
- **2023-06-14** Amendment SA 1 to SS 2 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2023-06-14** Amendment SA 1 to SS 2 - Passed By Senate. Votes: 20 YES 1 ABSENT `amendment-passage`
- **2023-06-14** Passed By Senate. Votes: 20 YES 1 ABSENT `passage`
- **2023-06-15** Assigned to Economic Development/Banking/Insurance & Commerce Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2023-06-20** Reported Out of Committee (Economic Development/Banking/Insurance & Commerce) in House with 3 Favorable, 5 On Its Merits, 1 Unfavorable `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage-unfavorable`
- **2023-06-29** Amendment HA 1 to SS 2 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2023-06-29** Amendment HA 1 to SS 2 - Passed In House by Voice Vote `amendment-passage`
- **2023-06-29** Passed By House. Votes: 25 YES 16 ABSENT `passage`
- **2023-06-30** Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES `passage`
- **2023-09-11** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/42c4b0ea-4a76-4f6f-8074-86c7aa19671b`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).