1,000% loans? Millions of borrowers face crushing costs, By Alain Sherter April 25, 2016, CBS News: “Last Christmas Eve, Virginia resident Patricia Mitchell borrowed $800 to help get through the holidays. Within three months, she owed her lender, Allied Cash Advance, $1,800. On the other side of the country, Marvin Ginn, executive director of Native Community Finance, a small lender in Laguna, New Mexico, reports that some customers come to him seeking help refinancing loans from nearby payday lenders that carry annual percentage rates of more than 1,000 percent…”
Payday lending: Will anything better replace it?, By Bethany McLean, May 2016, The Atlantic: “Fringe financial services is the label sometimes applied to payday lending and its close cousins, like installment lending and auto-title lending—services that provide quick cash to credit-strapped borrowers. It’s a euphemism, sure, but one that seems to aptly convey the dubiousness of the activity and the location of the customer outside the mainstream of American life. And yet the fringe has gotten awfully large…”
Immigrants, the poor and minorities gain sharply under Affordable Care Act, By Sabrina Tavernise and Robert Gebeloff, April 17, 2016, New York Times: “The first full year of the Affordable Care Act brought historic increases in coverage for low-wage workers and others who have long been left out of the health care system, a New York Times analysis has found. Immigrants of all backgrounds — including more than a million legal residents who are not citizens — had the sharpest rise in coverage rates. Hispanics, a coveted group of voters this election year, accounted for nearly a third of the increase in adults with insurance. That was the single largest share of any racial or ethnic group, far greater than their 17 percent share of the population. Low-wage workers, who did not have enough clout in the labor market to demand insurance, saw sharp increases. Coverage rates jumped for cooks, dishwashers, waiters, as well as for hairdressers and cashiers. Minorities, who disproportionately worked in low-wage jobs, had large gains…”
Obamacare seems to be reducing people’s medical debt, By Margot Sanger-Katz, April 20, 2016, New York Times: “Even if you lack health insurance, you’ll probably be able to get treatment at a hospital in the event of a catastrophe — if you’re struck by a car, say. But having insurance can mean the difference between financial security and financial ruin. A new study is showing that, by giving health insurance to low-income people, Obamacare seems to have cut down on their debt substantially. It estimates that medical debt held by people newly covered by Medicaid since 2014 has been reduced by about $600 to $1,000 each year…”
Obamacare expanding coverage for the poor, study finds, By Karen Pallarito, April 20, 2016, Philadelphia Inquirer: “State Medicaid expansions under Obamacare have improved low-income Americans’ insurance coverage, increased their doctor visits and enhanced detection of chronic health conditions, which could lead to improvements in health, a new study suggests. The findings are important as policymakers continue to debate the value of expanding Medicaid, the publicly funded health insurance program for the poor, researchers said…”
Justice Dept. tells state judges to stop targeting the poor, By Cathaleen Chen, March 14, 2016, Christian Science Monitor: “As part of the Obama administration’s latest civil rights initiative that examines individual states, the Justice Department is now calling out state court systems for operating ‘unconstitutional’ policies that unfairly target poor people in a cycle of fines, debt, and imprisonment. ‘This unconstitutional practice is often framed as a routine administrative matter,’ Vanita Gupta, the Justice Department’s top civil rights prosecutor, wrote to chief judges and court administrator warning them against procedures like using arrest warrants to collect fines and debts…”
Justice Dept. condemns profit-minded court policies targeting the poor, By Matt Apuzzo, March 14, 2016, New York Times: “The Justice Department on Monday called on state judges across the country to root out unconstitutional policies that have locked poor people in a cycle of fines, debt and jail. It was the Obama administration’s latest effort to take its civil rights agenda to the states, which have become a frontier in the fight over the rights of the poor and the disabled, the transgender and the homeless…”
