“Health Insurance Coverage and Health — What the Recent Evidence Tells Us”

That's the name of this New England Journal of Medicine article by Benjamin D. Sommers, Atul A. Gawande, and Katherine Baicker. They looked carefully at the literature asking whether having health insurance improves health outcomes. The authors also looked at a range of variables, including the quality of insurance. Here are excerpts from of their conclusions: One question experts […]

Sarah Kliff on the CBO’s score of the Senate health care bill

Read health-care journalist Sarah Kliff's article titled Page 48 is the most important page in the CBO report. The whole thing is worth reading. Here's a key takeaway: The CBO report is a dense 49-page document that you can read here. But you can find its clearest explanation of the Senate bill on page 48. This is […]

Supreme Court holds that American Pipe class-action tolling rule does not apply to cases brought under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933

The decision is Calpers v. ANZ Securities. The vote is 5 to 4, with Justice Kennedy writing the majority opinion, and Justice Ginsburg writing the dissent. Skipping all its nuances, the American Pipe rule provides generally that the statute of limitations for absent class members is tolled from the filing of a class-action complaint until the […]

A Few More Thoughts On Henson v. Santander

by Jeff Sovern As we reported a couple weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Henson v. Santander that debt buyers are not automatically debt collectors under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.   However, debt buyers which have debt collection as the principal purpose of their business should still qualify as debt collectors under the statute (the […]

Skiba & Xiao Article on Consumer Litigation Funding

Paige Marta Skiba and Jean Xiao of Vanderbilt have written Consumer Litigation Funding: Just Another Form of Payday Lending? 80 Law and Contemporary Problems (2017).  Here is the abstract: This article provides a side-by-side comparison of payday lending and consumer litigation funding in order to aid policymakers. Funding has similarities with payday lending because they are […]

Deregulation of medical devices under Trump (and the republican Congress)

David Hilzenrath at the Project on Government Oversight reports here about what strikes me as a bunch of future disasters waiting to happen. An excerpt: When makers of medical devices learn that one of their products has malfunctioned in a way that could kill or seriously injure people, they are required to file a report with the […]

LA City Attorney: Why we can’t lose the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

by Jeff Sovern Some congressional Republicans have said that the CFPB was asleep at the switch when it came to the Wells Fargo unauthorized account scandal, and that it just piggy-backed on the LA City Attorney, which was the first governmental office to bring a case against Wells for the accounts.  But now the LA […]

Second Circuit: Under TCPA, Consumer Can’t Revoke Consent That is Term in Prior Contract

The case is Reyes v. Lincoln Autmotive Financial Service, and it conflicts with decisions of the Third and Eleventh Circuits.  The TCPA has come in for increasing attention lately, with a recent hearing in Congress discussing possible amendments to the statute.  (HT: Gregory Gauthier) 

Alan Kaplinsky Reports Rumor that CFPB to Issue Arbitration Rule By July 31 and Cordray to Step Down This Year

Here, in the Consumer Finance Monitor.  Alan also notes that the rule can be blocked by congressional invocation of the Congressional Review Act, litigation, or, if Cordray does indeed step down, by a new Trump-appointed director.