Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘access to justice’

Hopeful in St. Louis

Posted in Consumer Protection, Social Justice, tagged , , on August 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

All around the country, newspapers’ consumer journalists are taking notice and reporting on the injustice of forced arbitration. Most recently, Matthew Hathaway, columnist for the St. Louis-Post Dispatch, posted a short article on the “The Savvy Consumer” blog. While Hathaway reports on the biases and unfairness of the predatory corporate practice, he’s a tad overly optimistic [...]

Read Full Post »

I wouldn’t sign the document

Posted in Consumer Protection, Social Justice, tagged , , on June 11, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Yesterday evening I met with a financial advisor from a large financial company. The meeting was going well and I was ready to sign on for much-needed financial advice until we started discussing the agreement. First, he told me that the agreement was not a contract. I quickly corrected him and explained that they were one [...]

Read Full Post »

RAND study agrees: Improving patient safety will reduce malpractice claims

Posted in Health, tagged , , on April 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

For decades, Public Citizen has urged Congress and regulators to address the patient safety crisis. We told them that reducing medical errors would also reduce the claims and the associated costs. Today, the RAND Corporation – an independent, non-profit research firm – released a report confirming our assertions. They write: Our results showed a highly [...]

Read Full Post »

A consumer’s nightmare: A victim of forced arbitration tells his story

Posted in Congress, Consumer Protection, tagged , on March 8, 2010 | 1 Comment »

In 2007, John Perz (whose story has been covered by Consumer Reports, and who tells his own story here) bought a used car from a local lot in San Diego. The car had a rattle, but the salesman promised Perz that if he made an appointment, the rattle would be fixed free of charge. When [...]

Read Full Post »

Keep this out of health care reform

Posted in Consumer Protection, Health, Social Justice, tagged , , , , on February 26, 2010 | 8 Comments »

The President and Republicans sparred over health care in yesterday’s “bipartisan” meeting. One of Republicans’ favorite talking points is so-called “tort reform”- or restricting patients’ ability to hold negligent doctors and hospitals accountable for injuries they cause. They argue that liability limits will reduce health care costs. The news out of Texas is that its comprehensive [...]

Read Full Post »

They’ve got it all wrong…

Posted in Congress, Health, tagged , on February 24, 2010 | Comments Off

No longer are policy makers claiming that large leaps in health care costs are due to malpractice lawsuits. It is now the fear of litigation, according to a memorandum released by Public Citizen Doctors are finding it necessary to practice ‘defensive medicine,’ ordering excessive tests and procedures for patients. Let’s look at the facts: In [...]

Read Full Post »

Myth about Texas health care system debunked

Posted in Consumer Protection, Health, Texas, tagged on December 17, 2009 | 1 Comment »

You’ve probably heard members of Congress spouting off lately about how the imposition of caps on medical malpractice payouts in Texas has been so great. Well, those lawmakers are wrong.  Public Citizen today released a report showing that the caps have failed to improve the health care system. Not only has the percentage of uninsured [...]

Read Full Post »

More than 125,500 tell Chamber of Commerce: Stop protecting rapists!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on December 17, 2009 | Comments Off

That’s right, more than 125,500 signed our petition to demand an end to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s lobbying against Sen. Franken’s (D-Minn.) amendment to bar defense contractors like Halliburton/KBR from forcing employees with sexual assault and discrimination claims into arbitration. Public Citizen, along with MoveOn.org, National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Consumer Action, Workplace [...]

Read Full Post »

Cost of malpractice insurance steady or falling

Posted in Congress, Health, tagged , , on December 1, 2009 | Comments Off

New numbers from the Medical Liability Monitor show that 94 percent of medical malpractice insurance premiums have remained steady or dropped. Maggie Mertens over at NPR’s Shots Health Blog observes that the timing of this release is bad news for efforts to slip “tort reform” into the federal health care package. No doubt it will [...]

Read Full Post »

Shame on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Posted in Activism, Congress, Social Justice, tagged , , , , on November 19, 2009 | 5 Comments »

By now, you’ve probably heard about the story of Jamie Leigh Jones. In 2005, she was working for a Halliburton subsidiary in Iraq when she was gang-raped by coworkers. Four years later, Jamie is still being denied justice. Jamie can’t pursue justice in criminal court because the rape took place overseas, and a forced arbitration [...]

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »