This sixth grade student is held to a higher standard than the United States Department of Health and Human Services. CREDIT: AP Photo/Ty Wright.
The devil is in the details, so it’s said. There’s such a constant thower of thit, to quote Igor, that it’s very easy to miss the smaller things, the fine mitht of the thit thower, as Igor might say. First is the news that our current health regulators aren’t good at math. At all.
…Thus, for example, a fifth grade student is expected to understand that the number “3.49” is greater than the number “3.” The Trump administration, however, appears to be struggling with this concept.
Under the Affordable Care Act, “the premium rate charged by a health insurance issuer for health insurance coverage offered in the individual or small group market . . . shall not vary by more than 3 to 1 for adults” due to the age of the person seeking insurance. In other words, insurers may charge older consumers (who tend to have more health problems and thus are more expensive to cover) up to three times more than younger individuals, but no more than three times as much.
Nevertheless, according to the Huffington Post’s Jonathan Cohn, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) submitted a proposal which would permit insurers to charge older customers premiums that are “3.49 times as large as those for younger customers.” This proposal would be a federal rule, not a new law, so HHS apparently hopes to implement it without changing the law saying that insurers can only charge older customers 3 times as much, not 3.49 times as much.
According to Cohn, HHS would argue that this is okay because “3.49 ‘rounds down’ to three.”
If you find yourself prone to shrugging over this, have a second think. 3 and 3.49 might not seem like a big deal, but when you’re going to be charged that difference financially, it’s a big difference. It’s a difference which could determine whether or not you can afford healthcare. Full story at Think Progress.
Prepaid cash and credit cards have been a gold rush for the financial industry — and not everyone in the business plays fair with customers. CREDIT: AP Photo/Swayne B. Hall, File.
In a very quiet move, consumer protections are going to be removed from pre-paid debit cards, and this will disproportionately affect those who are poor. We all know how much the GOP cares about poor people.
…But prepaid debit card companies are suddenly holding a get-out-of-jail-free card, courtesy of Sen. David Perdue (R-GA). Perdue is pushing legislation to override and permanently derail the CFPB’s three-month-old rules package for the cards, reviving even the most deceptive practices over expert advice to the contrary.
Prepaid debit cards now account for tens of billions of dollars in financial activity each year, creating a giant profit opportunity for the financial companies that issue cards to consumers. One Federal Reserve report in 2014 found the average customer pays $15 to $17 in fees each month on the cards, and that fees skew higher for customers who are black, younger than 15, widowed, or living in areas with relatively high rates of violent crime.
[…]
Only one major provider of prepaid cards charges overdraft fees. NetSpend, which does most of its business by partnering with storefront payday lenders, is uniquely reliant on the most deceitful species of fee-for-service practices.
Again, CFPB’s rule doesn’t bar the overdraft charges; it just forces companies to be honest and forthright about them. NetSpend couldn’t stand that sunlight. NetSpend and its parent company, Georgia-based TSYS, say they would lose some $80 million a year if consumers were finally protected from its policies.
Perdue and his co-sponsors say their move to end consumer protections for prepaid cards is about preserving access for consumers. The fact that it is also an $80 million favor to an unsavory financial company based in his state—and a thumb in the eye of the millions of people who have turned to the cards as a substitute for traditional bank accounts — is apparently a coincidence.
This will have a devastating effect on way too many people, and it’s doubtful most people will even be aware of this, and won’t be able to employ more vigilance against those looking to rob the poor and mire them into never-ending debt. Think Progress has the full story.
They’re screwing over 15-year-olds?
Age limits on credit cards, isn’t that a thing? Something about being responsible and an adult and stuff like that -- or does that not apply to these pre-paid screwovers?
I’m just… 15-year-olds. Christ.
Storefront check cashing/lending, pre-paid debit cards, pre-paid cells, all that shit is targeted at people who are poor, and keeps them in a vicious circle of hand to mouth. There are companies who do pre-paid who don’t stoop to dirty tricks, but you need resources to find out which one is less likely to screw you over.
I remember days of having to do storefront check cashing/lending, and it’s system set up to bilk people who have next to nothing. It’s extremely hard to get out of it and away from it, and get yourself into a typical situation with a bank account, stable debit card, and all that.
… But 15-year-olds? Don’t you have to be legally an adult before entering into such contracts and agreements, even if they’re being thrown into your face?
I’m sorry, I’m just not comprehending this.
No. If someone has the money to put onto a prepaid debit card, then they can buy one. These things are made to suck money out of peoples’ pockets, and having any sort of regulation on them at all would seriously cut into profits, so…
And even where there were regulations, they are being stripped so fast by Tiny Dictator & Co., that they may as well never have been in place.
Perdue and his co-sponsors say their move to end consumer protections for prepaid cards is about preserving access for consumers.
Which reminds me of a bit recently read in Jack Beatty’s Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900, on late 19th-century court decisions:
@Pierce:
So, 16.49 Tons, uh? The scary thing about those facts is that Betsy DeVoldemort is pretty much OK with child labor. Couple that with Trump’s adoration of coal and the picture becomes even scarier.
I’d never heard of a prepaid debit card, so had to do a bit of reading up to work out what the feck it is — and having done so, they are so obviously open to abuse on most fronts I must admit to being very surprised they are “legal”. I’m also rather stunned at the quoted fees (“the average customer pays $15 to $17 in fees each month on the cards”), which is, in very round numbers, $200 a year. Just to show how mind-boggling that is, an AmEx “Platinum” credit card used to be $300 per year, and that included a bunch of ego-massaging “extras”.
Blf:
They are made to bilk those who are poor, and who have little recourse to the typical way of doing things. A debit card is needed for so much these days (or a credit card), and a lot of people prefer debit, because you can’t accrue the same kind of debt you can on a credit card. All that said, when you need most of your cash for living expenses, and basically have none left from check to check for a bank account, you get caught up in using these things. As I said, I’ve been there, and it’s extremely difficult to get out. If you have kids, I’d say it’s near impossible to do so. You can get out by committing to only paying crucial bills and rent, and going without everything else long enough to open a bank account, then going without long enough to add a decent amount of money and get a proper debit card.
You can often get very good, money-saving deals on the net, but you have to have a card. In order to get that bank account, card, and all that shit, you also need a fixed address, and proof of responsibility and all that crap. It’s a mess, and you end up with more people paying out money they can’t afford, and don’t have.