Consumer Law & Policy Blog

Should the Post Office Be Privatized?

Or are economic conservatives wrong to think that the U.S. Postal Service should be run like a private business? Is privatization best for consumers? Read about these issues in this column by Michael Hiltzik.

GAO Says U.S. Should Reassess Health Effects of Cell Phone Use

Over the years, we have covered the controversy over the possible connection between cell phone use and cancer, and we have discussed the differences between the regulatory approaches taken in the U.S. and abroad. (Go here for instance.) Yesterday, the U.S. Government Accountabilty Office issued this report entitled "Exposure and Testing Requirements for Mobile Phones Should Be Reassessed." As its title indicates, the report found that

[t]he Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) RF [radio-frequency] energy exposure limit may not reflect the latest research, and testing requirements may not identify maximum exposure in all possible usage conditions. FCC set an RF energy exposure limit for mobile phones in 1996, based on recommendations from federal health and safety agencies and international organizations. These international organizations have updated their exposure limit recommendation in recent years, based on new research, and this new limit has been widely adopted by other countries, including countries in the European Union.

Note that the GAO did not find a connection between cell phone use and cancer nor did it find that current U.S. safety rules are inadequate. Go here to read a summary of the GAO's findings. Read that summary, plus why GAO did the study and GAO's recommendations, after the jump.

Debt Collection Video

Here or click on the embedded video below. (HT: Gina Calabrese)

 

Minnesota Attorney General Settles with Accretive Health

Back in April, we posted about a debt collection company, Accretive Health, that allegedly staffs hospitals and then uses its staff's proximity to patients and patients' health records to collect patients' debts for the hospitals. We discussed the Minnesota Attorney General's efforts to crack down on Accretive. The AG's most recent federal court complaint against Accretive is here.

Now, U.S PIRG's consumer blog is reporting that the Minnesota Attorney General has settled with Accretive. The settlement involves restitution, a $2.5 million civil penalty, and a ban on Accretive doing business in Minnesota for six years. For more information, read the Minnesota Attorney General's press release (scroll down on page to see the release). 

The settlement must be approved by the federal court.

Protecting Against Disclosure of Consumers' Personal Information (or Not)

This column by David Lazurus illustrates how difficult it is to protect consumers' personal information when the law demands that the consumer opt out -- that is, when a bank or other business is permitted to share a consumer's personal information with other companies unless the consumer says no.

Climate Change

How does climate change affect consumers? Well, life is going to become a lot more costly if you (or your kids) have to pick up and leave your (their) coastal residence(s) because your (their) area will soon be under water. More immediately, if the very hot and dry conditions this summer are a result of climate change, then we have climate change to blame for higher food prices and energy bills.

James Hanson, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has written this opinion piece on climate change. He and his colleagues sure think that the recent weather is related to climate change. Here's an excerpt:

In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures ..., my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present. This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.

Key Republican lawmakers disagree, saying that the weather sometimes runs hot and sometimes runs cold, but there's no hard evidence of climate change.

David Reiss on Shadow Banking and Mortgages

David J. Reiss of Brooklyn has written Consumer Protection Out of the Shadows of Shadow Banking: The Role of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Brook. J. Corp. Fin. & Com. L., 2012 (Forthcoming).  Here is the abstract:

Consumer protection remains the stepchild of financial regulation. Notwithstanding the fact that the economic doldrums we find ourselves in originated in the under-regulated subprime mortgage sector, relatively few academic commentators focus on the role that consumer protection can play in reducing such risks as well as in restoring the balance between consumer and producer in the financial markets. This essay suggests that consumer protection regulation has an important role to play in the regulatory structure of the shadow banking sector.

This essay does four things. First, it describes the role of shadow banking in the residential mortgage market — the shadow mortgage banking sector, as it were. Second, it contrasts two mortgages. One is emblematic of shadow mortgage banking during the Subprime Boom. The other is Dodd-Frank’s response to the excesses of the Subprime Boom — the “Qualified Mortgage.” It then evaluates whether “Qualified Mortgages” can restrain some of shadow mortgage banking’s excesses, and finds that they may be able to do so. It concludes by reviewing the first steps taken by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as it begins implementing Dodd-Frank’s mortgage-related provisions.

Is Salt Bad for You?

Of course it is. If you eat too much of it, your blood pressure will likely go up permanently. And hyypertension is a risk factor for heart disease and other serious illnesses. This is the conventional wisdom, and it has been for decades. In this New York Times column, Gary Taubes, an independent investigator with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says that there is little evidence that high salt intake causes hypertension and that, overall, the relevant studies are inconclusive. Hat tip to Rosie Dillon.

Medicaid and the November Elections

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) seeks to cover most of the millions of Americans who lack health insurance using several methods, none bigger that its Medicaid expansion. After the expansion, nearly all Americans with income up to 133% of the federal poverty level would be eligible for government funded medical care. (Without the ACA, Medicaid eligility not only requires poverty -- extreme poverty in some cases -- but also inclusion in a category, such as disability, being above or below a certain age, etc.)

Under the Supreme Court's recent decision in National Federation of Indepedent Business v. Sebelius, the ACA's Medicaid expansion survived, but states have the opportunity to opt out of it. The federal government is funding all of the new Medicaid costs for the first two years of the expansion and at least 90% of it after that, so it's unlikely that many (if any) states will opt out (though some are threatening to do so).

Okay, so that explains the Democratic Party's view of what the country should be doing about health care for poor people. And what about the Republicans? Well, if they win the White House and Congress in November, they want to enact major cuts in Medicaid, as explained in this article by Micahel Hiltzik. Another article provides more detail.

A Brief Commentary on Voter ID Laws

UPDATE and CORRECTION:  The website snopes.com says that the claim that Ronald Reagan was not issued a birth certificate until 1991 is false. It appears, in fact, that the birth certificate was first issued in 1942 (when Reagan was 31 years old). However, the snopes post on the Reagan birth certificate appears to confirm the basic point made by the ad: that people born outside of hospitals during Reagan's era may well not have birth certificates and, therefore, would have difficulty voting under some present-day voter ID laws.