So opines the Washington Post, here.
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
A scary statistic. The Post has more on what it means and how it has come about.
The Times explains: The number of uninsured Americans has fallen by an estimated 15 million since 2013, thanks largely to the Affordable Care Act. But a new survey, the first detailed study of Americans struggling with medical bills, shows that insurance often fails as a safety net. Health plans often require hundreds or thousands of dollars […]
…is the headline of this week's NYT story about internal emails at the manufacturer whose airbags have been the subject of a recall after federal regulators recognized that they had the potential to explode and shoot debris at passengers. A taste of the article: “Happy Manipulating!!!” a Takata airbag engineer, Bob Schubert, wrote in one […]
It's been a while since we discussed the Facebook minors'-privacy case, a class action over Facebook's use of members' images in ads without their consent. Public Citizen represented parents who objected to the proposed settlement because it permitted Facebook to continue using their children's images in ads without parental consent — a practice that violates […]
From the Times: Mayor Bill de Blasio is set to announce on Wednesday a $15-an-hour minimum wage for New York City’s public work force that city officials said would be among the highest of its kind in the country. Under the mayor’s plan, which matches a similar increase for state employees enacted by Gov. Andrew […]
The NYT reports: The Justice Department sued the German automaker Volkswagen in federal court on Monday, saying that the company installed illegal devices in nearly 600,000 diesel engine systems to impair emissions controls, increasing harmful air pollution. But despite a pledge by the Justice Department in September to go after executives responsible for corporate wrongdoing, federal […]
…is a Post feature from last week about the practice of structured-settlement purchasing. The story summarizes: Unlike traditional settlements, which are paid out in one sum, structured settlements dispense the payout in portions over a lifetime to protect vulnerable people from immediately spending it all. Since 1975, insurance firms have committed an estimated $350 billion to […]
Last week, the CFPB filed a motion in a D.C. federal district court seeking to unmask companies that sued the agency this past summer, in a case whose public filings bear the mysterious caption John Doe Company v. CFPB (No. 1:15-cv-1177, D.D.C.). The lawsuit was entirely under wraps until October, when the court unsealed the […]
As the NYT reported last week, The D.M.V. proposal would mandate that autonomous vehicles be operated by a licensed driver who could take over if necessary. That driver would also be on the hook for traffic violations. The manufacturers of self-driving cars would have to subject their vehicles to a third-party safety test. And they would apply […]