Read This Model Debt Collection Law

Bob Hobbs and Chi Chi Wu of the National Consumer Law Center have drafted a model debt collection law that they call the Model Financial Protection Act. Read the Act here, including an 8-page introduction explaining the need for the legislation. Here's the Act's basic structure:

Title I of the Model Family Financial Protection Act protects consumers from the most common abuses in the credit and collections industries, restoring balance to an increasingly lopsided system of justice. While Title I ensures that consumers receive basic protections as creditors pursue judgments, Title II modernizes the personal and Model Family Financial Protection Act residential property shielded from debt collectors once a judgment has been obtained, allowing families a chance to get back on their feet after a period of financial hardship.

United Healthcare -- the Country's Largest Health Insurer -- Will Retain Some ACA Mandates Even if the Supreme Court Nixes the Law

As explained here in today's Washington Post, the nation's largest health insurer, United Healthcare, says that it will retain some of the Affordable Care Act's important benefits even if the Supreme Court holds that the Act is unconstitutional.

Here's an excerpt from the Post article:

The nation’s largest health insurer will keep in place several key consumer provisions mandated by the 201 health-care law regardless of whether the statute survives Supreme Court review. Officials at UnitedHealthcare will announce Monday that whatever the outcome of the court decision — expected this month — the company will continue to provide customers preventive health-care services without co-payments or other out-of-pocket charges, allow parents to keep adult children up to age 26 on their plans, and maintain the more streamlined appeals process required by the law. UnitedHealthcare would also continue to observe the law’s prohibitions on putting lifetime limits on insurance payouts and rescinding coverage after a member becomes ill, except in cases where a member intentionally lied on an insurance application.

Could it be that the ACA has nudged United Health to change its policies (at least for the time being)? Is it just good business for United Healthcare to maintain provisions already in effect that are popular with its insureds? United Healthcare's announcement makes me think that, despite the ACA's supposed lack of popularity, many parts of the law that are in effect are in fact quite popular. (We know that the provision mandating that children under age 26 must be offered insurance on their parents' plans has proved very popular. (Go here as well.)) Presumably, United Health is not interested in foisting on its insureds benefits that they dislike.

Now let's see whether some of United Healthcare's competitors follow suit.

The Issues Before the Supreme Court in the Affordable Care Act Case

As we get closer to the Supreme Court's rulings on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (and related issues), which are expected by the end of this month, some of our readers may want to aquaint (or reaquaint) themselves with the basic arguments in the case. As we told you back in mid-January, I. Glenn Cohen of Harvard Law School sat for this audio interview in which he describes, clearly and with sophistication, each of the challenges to the Affordable Care Act now before the Supreme Court. It's very good and definitely worth a listen.

Food Deserts and Obesity

You've probably heard about food deserts -- the idea that low-income neighborhoods have few if any grocery stores selling healthy foods like fruits and vegetables, leading to obesity and poor health among poor people. And, as the chart below shows, there is a fairly strong relationship in urban America between the poverty rate and the obesity rate:

 But that doesn't necessarily mean that eliminating the food deserts -- that is, bringing healthier foods to poor neighborhoods -- will begin to solve the problem. Food habits have to change, and the healthy foods need to be affordable. The problem is quite complex, as this article from Sunday's Washington Post shows. Go here as well.

Eric Goldman on Privacy Class Actions

 

Eric Goldman

 of Santa Clara has written The Irony of Privacy Class Action Litigation, 10 Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law (2012).  Here is the abstract:

In the past few years, publicized privacy violations have regularly spawned class action lawsuits in the United States, even when the company made a good faith mistake and no victim suffered any quantifiable harm. Privacy advocates often cheer these lawsuits because they generally favor vigorous enforcement of privacy violations, but this essay encourages privacy advocates to reconsider their support for privacy class action litigation. By its nature, class action litigation uses tactics that privacy advocates disavow. Thus, using class action litigation to remediate privacy violations proves to be unintentionally ironic. 

States Delaying ACA Implementation

Many states are delaying implementation of the Affordable Care Act as they await the Supreme Court's decision on its constitutionality. Read about it here.

Texas Supreme Court Rules on Class Action Standing and Mootness

by Leah Nicholls

Today, in Heckman v. Williamson County, No. 10-0671, the Texas Supreme Court followed federal standing and mootness doctrine in permitting a 1983 class action alleging that a Texas county routinely fails to appoint counsel to represent indigent defendants to go forward. First, the Court held that not every named plaintiff must have standing at the time of suit as to every claim---as long as the plaintiffs, taken together, have standing as to each claim, the case can proceed. Second, the Court rejected the county’s argument that the suit was moot because all the named plaintiffs eventually obtained counsel and their criminal proceedings are complete. The Court reasoned that the claims were inherently transitory, and, thus, even though the named plaintiffs’ claims were now moot, that did not make the class action moot. The county also argued that it had changed its policies in the interim, and, for that reason also, the case was moot. The Court remanded for a determination of whether the changed policies actually changed the facts on the ground or whether the problems persist despite the new policies.

New Polls Says Public Approval of Supreme Court Has Declined

As public approval of institutions like Congress and the Presidency have plummeted, the public's view of the Supreme Court remained high. A new poll indicates that the public's esteem for the Supreme Court is slipping too. The poll says only 44 percent of Americans approve the court's work (compared to the high 60s in the late 1980s), with 75 percent saying that the Justices' are influenced by their personal politics. 60% disagree with the constitution's requirement that a justice serve for life (absent impeachment). (The constitution, I should add, does not necessarily demand life appointment as a Supreme Court justice. It's possible that the constitutional requirement would be met if Justices served for a term of years, so long as they were permitted to serve elsewhere in the federal judiciary after their terms expired.)

The Market for New Lawyers is Very Bad

We've been covering the legal job market and efforts to make law schools more transparent about their graduates' employment. Now, this story says

New statistics from [the National Association for Law Placement] paint a bleak picture of the job market for 2011 law grads. The overall employment rate nine months after graduation was 85.6 percent, the lowest it has been since 1994, according to a NALP press release. But the employment rate doesn’t tell the whole, dismal story. Among law grads whose employment status was known, only 65.4 percent were in jobs requiring bar passage, the lowest percentage ever measured by NALP. The number has fallen nine percentage points since 2008. Only 60 percent were working full-time as lawyers in jobs that required bar passage. (emphasis added)

For more information on transparency in the legal job market and consumer-oriented legal education policy, go to Law School Transparency. Go here for another story on the new NALP data.

More on Concepcion One Year After

Read this report.