Lisa Poplaski – Pittsfield, Massachusetts
<h3>Mandatory Private Insurance Is Unaffordable</h3>
Insurance
Insurance news, investigations, and reform — auto, home, and health insurance rates, claims denials, and industry accountability.
Watchdog Wants Spending on Travel, Meals, Gifts Justified
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<cite></cite>Sacramento, CA -- California's elections watchdog wants assurances
that politicians aren't tapping campaign funds to pay for personal
travel, meals and gifts.
</p>
<p>
The
Fair Political Practices...</p>
Poizner: Blue Shield canceled policies;
<h3>State insurance chief plans to pursue a $12.6 million fine for dropping patients.</h3><p class="source">Sacramento Bee (California)</p>
<p>Consumer advocates accused Blue Shield of downplaying the issue and called for tougher regulations on health insurers. "All big insurers are making money for themselves by denying people coverage," said Jerry Flanagan of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "Blue Shield refuses to acknowledge that they have done anything wrong."</p>
Health Insurance Issue Sparks Fight Among Democrats, Bogs Down Schwarzenegger
<p class="source">The New York Sun</p>
<p>The issue of requiring individuals to purchase health insurance is triggering an escalating fight between the top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination even as the same question is bogging down Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to make sure all Californians are insured. "It's all connected and the connection here is a push for an individual mandate," a critic of Mr. Schwarzenegger's proposal, Carmen Balber of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, said. "If you're not limiting what private insurers can charge, then that is, in the end, an unlimited burden on individuals," Ms. Balber said.</p>
Stem-cell agency denies 10 grants, cites conflicts of interest
<h3>CONFLICTS OF INTEREST CITED FOR 10 APPLICATIONS</h3><p class="source">San Jose Mercury News</p>
<p>But John Simpson of the consumer group that complained about Reed said the agency should name the institutions and individuals involved in the rejected grant applications. "People have a right to know which board members still don't understand conflict-of-interest rules," he said. "Perhaps a few of these deans need to enroll in Ethics 101."</p>
Consumers Knock Cell Service
<p>
Consumer Reports' survey found that cellular phone providers' often onerous contract terms and early termination penalties are being revised under the pressure of class-action lawsuits. "In the past five years, consumer advocates such as the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, in Santa Monica, Calif., and class action lawyers have filed more than 100 lawsuits coast to coast, according to an analysis by Thomson West, a legal-information-services firm," the magazine says.
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Ruling on recisions is blow to insurers;
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Patients dropped by Blue Shield may sue as a class, a panel says.</h3><p class="source">Los Angeles Times</p>
<p>Jamie Court, a spokesman for the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, said regulators should determine how many policies have been canceled improperly under the standards set out in the decision and move to reinstate them so that patients in need of treatment won't have to wait for the legal process to play out. "If Blue Shield can't offer at least the due process of a staple and a photocopy, then it shouldn't be allowed to ruin people's lives by taking away their healthcare coverage and refusing to pay their big medical bills," Court said.</p>
Employment law ruling may impact wireless operators;
<h3>Case calls into question legality of arbitration clauses</h3><p class="source">RCR Wireless News</p>
<p>"What's fascinating is that the wireless companies have lost a slew of arbitration decisions in California and across the country but have not asked the Supreme Court to review those,'' said Harvey Rosenfield, founder of the San Francisco-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "Rather they are jumping into an employment contract case with a screed against the California courts in the hopes that the Supreme Court will issue a decision that kills state law protections and shoves one-sided kangaroo court arbitration down the throats of cellular consumers everywhere."</p>
Audit Ordered for California Stem Cell Agency;
<h3>California State Controller John Chiang has ordered an audit of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, citing accusations of conflict of interest.</h3><p class="source">Wired Magazine</p>
<p>John M. Simpson, stem cell project director of the nonprofit Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a group that has closely watched the institute since its inception, has called for the resignation of both Klein and Reed, a call echoed by The Sacramento Bee, the leading newspaper in the California state capital. Simpson said the only way to clear the air and restore confidence in the agency's grant awards process is for both men to leave.</p>
UC Signs BP Contract, Research Already Underway
<p class="source">Berkeley Daily Planet (California)</p>
<p>John Simpson of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) said he was particularly concerned because the contract gives BP more control of the EBI and research than envisioned in the original proposal. "BP can thwart any action they wish," said Simpson. "And given the despicable record of BP, which killed 15 of its workers in Texas and spilled oil all over Alaska because of unreasonable cost cutting, why should we believe the oil giant would act in good faith? They have demonstrated time and again that they act only in their own narrow interest."</p>
Insurance chief hires top legal enforcer – and gets some static
<p class="source">Sacramento Bee (California)</p>
<p>Cole's selection, however, was questioned by one consumer group. It also follows a call by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights for Poizner to fire his special counsel, William Gausewitz, a former industry lobbyist accused of trying to help insurance avoid paying thousands in court fees during a legal fight over insurance rates.</p>
Donations influence admissions at UCLA’s elite orthodontics program
<p class="source">The Daily Bruin (UCLA)</p>
<p>Many worry such grants surrender undue influence to private interests, compromising the integrity of university research. "The university is digging everywhere it can to find new sources of revenue," said John Simpson, a consumer advocate at the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "In that process, they're selling the soul of higher education to the highest bidder."</p>