Consumer Law & Policy Blog

Congressional Budget Office says that under republicans' ACA repeal-and-replace 24 million people will lose health insurance

This Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of the republicans' proposed repeal-and-replace of the Affordable Care Act -- the health care "reform" law championed by Speaker Paul Ryan -- finds that 14 million people will lose their health insurance in the year following enactment. Another 10 million people will lose their health insurance by 2026. Read this article by Dan Mangan for further explanation.

NJ Supreme Court: Failure to Pay Arbitration Fee Costs Ability to Enforce Arbitration Clause

Here. HT: Gregory Gauthier.

John Oliver on the republicans and the Affordable Care Act

Go here or click on the embedded video below:

 

VW pleads guility to felonies in connection with emissions cheating

Volkswagen has pleaded guilty to three felonies and agreed to pay some fines in connection with its emissions cheating.

A few stories on the plea deal are here, here, and here.

House bill would let employers require genetic testing

In connection with the health care legislation moving through the House of representatives, Stat News reports:

A little-noticed bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information.

Giving employers such power is now prohibited by legislation including the 2008 genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA. The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do not apply when genetic tests are part of a “workplace wellness” program.

The bill, HR 1313, was approved by a House committee on Wednesday, with all 22 Republicans supporting it and all 17 Democrats opposed. It has been overshadowed by the debate over the House GOP proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but the genetic testing bill is expected to be folded into a second ACA-related measure containing a grab-bag of provisions that do not affect federal spending, as the main bill does.

The full article is here.

"Senate GOP votes to nix Obama-era education rules"

The Hill reports: "The Senate is taking a hammer to a pair of Obama-era education rules. Senators voted 50-49 on Thursday to roll back a regulation that placed tougher accountability measures on schools. The rule detailed how public schools must carry out laws meant to ensure they are meeting the needs of all students. Republicans are using the Congressional Review Act to nix the Obama regulations, allowing them to undo the rules without any support from Democrats. Thursday's vote comes after senators voted 59-40 on Wednesday to nix teacher preparation requirements."

The Hill's full article is here.

CFPB proposes 6-month delay of prepaid card rule

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced plans to delay the effective date of its prepaid card rule for six months, to April 1, 2018.

The CFPB's press release stated: "The CFPB’s prepaid accounts rule will provide strong consumer protections and we want the rule to become effective as soon as possible. However, through our efforts to support industry implementation, we have learned that some industry participants believe they will have difficulty complying with certain provisions of the rule by the current October 1, 2017 effective date. We believe that delaying the effective date by six months will be sufficient for industry participants to ensure they can comply with the rule. While we are not proposing to change any other part of the prepaid accounts rule at this time, we are asking the public to provide comments about any implementation challenges that may affect consumers, and how additional time will impact industry, consumers, and other stakeholders."

The prepaid card rule deals with fee disclosures, fraud protection and dispute resolution for prepaid cards. The rule is here. The CFPB published the final rule in October 2016, and it was scheduled to go into effect on  October 1, 2017.

The proposal to postpone the effective date is here. Comments are due in three weeks.

House passes tort deform and class-action bills

This article by Kimberly Kindy discusses the basics of two bills that recently passed the House of Representatives concerning the state-law tort system and a class-action bill that would go beyond the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and move more class actions from state court to federal court. Both bills operate by imposing federal law and procedure -- federal power, that is -- on things traditionally done at the state level. The article also describes two other bills soon to be acted on by the House that would further impair the state-law civil justice system, both as to class actions and as to tort law more generally.

Trump Seems Uninformed During Discussions of CFPB, Firing Cordray with Community Bankers

by Jeff Sovern

The American Banker article is headlined Trump discussed Cordray's future in community bank meeting (free content).  Excerpt:

At one point, Trump expressed to the group that many had urged him to oust Cordray, but the president was not sure it was worth the political backlash. But Trump was apparently under the impression that Cordray’s term would be up soon.

Informed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who attended the meeting along with Gary Cohn, the White House’s chief economic adviser, that Cordray’s term lasts until July 2018, Trump asked whether anything could be done before then. Cohn said he and Mnuchin were working on the issue, while raising the prospect that Cordray could voluntarily depart to run for office in his home state of Ohio, according to participants in the meeting.

* * *

They also discussed the structure of the CFPB. Republicans have sought to replace the single director with a five-member board, though their enthusiasm for that idea has waned after Trump won the election.

“Both Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Mr. Cohn were very engaged with CFPB,” [ValueBank Texas CEO Scott] Heitkamp said. “We talked about a five-member board and [Trump] was very engaged with trying to understand” the benefits of a five-member board.

And WSJ reports:

[A] community banker complained to Mr. Trump about a mortgage regulation adopted after the financial crisis.

Mr. Trump turned to his top economic aides, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, according to people who attended the meeting.

 “Can I take care of that with an executive order?” Mr. Trump asked.

“No, Mr. President,” Mr. Mnuchin replied, explaining that the so-called qualified mortgage rules are written by independent regulators.

If the reports are accurate, Trump doesn't seem well-informed about these matters.

New CFPB Report Details Problems and Recent Reforms at Consumer Reporting Companies

A March 2017 report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sets out serious problems uncovered by examinations at the Big Three consumer reporting companies (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) and details significant new reforms that these companies must implement to protect consumers. 

 

This article by National Consumer Law Center staff attorney Chi Chi Wu walks through the problems and the reforms required by the three credit reporting agencies and their furnishers that ultimately could benefit up to 11 million consumers who have serious errors in their credit reports.