The rule, announced on Tuesday by Vice President Kamala Harris and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, will improve the ability for millions of Americans to take out more debt to purchase things like homes and cars.

According to Chopra, the rule - which has been in the works since September, could go into effect sometime next year.

"Our research shows that medical bills on your credit report aren't even predictive of whether you'll repay another type of loan. That means people's credit scores are being unjustly and inappropriately harmed by this practice," Chopra told ABC News.

CFPB's research estimates that the new rule would allow 22,000 more people to get approved for safe mortgages each year — meaning lenders could also benefit from the positive impact on peoples' credit scores, by being able to approve more borrowers.

Some major credit report companies have already stopped using medical debt to calculate peoples' credit worthiness, including Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. FICO and VantageScore also recently started factoring medical debt less heavily into their scores. -ABC News