Big Tobacco and Anti-Tobacco Team Up Against Health Care Act Smokers’ Surcharge

In this article, Sarah Kliff explains that the big tobacco companies and certain anti-cancer groups are allied against a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows health insurers to charge 50% higher premiums to smokers. (In real terms, the 50% smokers' surcharge could be much higher because the Act also bars government subsidies to […]

More on the FTC’s Study of the Credit Reporting Industry

We've posted ( here, here, and here) several times on the new FTC study on the credit reporting industry showing that millions of Americans' credit reports are wrong, many seriously wrong. Now, take a look at this piece by David Lazarus. It provides a couple examples of how faulty credit reports harm consumers. He also suggests […]

Do Car Rental Companies Charge Customers for Vehicle Damage that the Customers Didn’t Cause?

That's the topic of this article by consumer journalist and advocate Christopher Elliot. The article caught my eye for two reasons. First, it's fairly in-depth consumer journalism that used to be commonplace. The writer investigates and reports on a possible consumer rip-off, suggesting what might be done about it and, in the meantime, warning consumers […]

A Journalist Writes About His Experiences as a Debt Collector

by Jeff Sovern Back in 2008, Fred Williams, a reporter for the Buffalo News who had written stories about debt collectors, worked as a debt collector for an upstate New York debt collection firm.  Williams was not exactly undercover–he disclosed that he had written the stories–but it sounds as if he was treated as any […]

The Affordable Care Act’s Medical Loss Ratio Rule’s Application to Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug Plans

One of the key components of the new Affordable Care Act is its medical loss ratio rule. The rule seeks to control health care costs by requiring medical insurers who don't spend at least 80 to 85 percent of their premium earnings on health care — rather than on marketing and administrative expenses — to […]

An astonishing arbitration decision in an age of astonishing arbitration decisions

Why do courts enforce mandatory arbitration clauses? Because the contracting parties agreed to them, the courts tell us. Not this time. A Florida intermediate appellate court held earlier this month that an arbitration clause was enforceable in a wrongful death suit against a rehabilitation center even though Jessie Holloway, the 92-year-old woman who signed the […]

$35 million fraud settlement in Florida

From a DOJ press release: "Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS), a publicly traded mortgage servicing company based in Jacksonville, Fla., has agreed to pay $35 million in criminal penalties and forfeiture to address its participation in a six-year scheme to prepare and file more than 1 million fraudulently signed and notarized mortgage-related documents with property […]