There was good news for a change from Washington this week.
Yesterday’s bipartisan summit on health care reform was a breath of fresh air even if it didn’t accomplish much that is substantive. I didn’t see the whole meeting but I don’t think the Single-Payer option, the only form of reform likely to transformationally improve out health care system, received significant (or even any) discussion. Nevertheless, just the fact that Democrats and Republicans sat in a conference room and debated health care reform in a public and civil manner is a quite the accomplishment.
Talking about more substantive stuff, credit card reform went fully into effect this week too—a consequence of Congress having passed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 — the Credit CARD Act.
The new act should provide some semblance of consumer protection:
The new law makes it more difficult for credit card companies to increase interest rates at will.
The new law makes credit card companies more clearly disclose real credit card costs.
The new law puts restrictions on credit card fees.
The new law requires grace periods so consumers can more easily pay their bills on time.
The new law requires cardholder permission for over-the-limit charging.
The new law requires a co-signer for those under 21 unless financially independent.
This is an accomplishment President Obama and Congressional leaders should be proud of!
Tags: Credit Card Act, Single payer health insurance, Single-payer health insurance system
This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Announcements, Health care reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.