Reports on Credit Card Companies, Health Courts, and Loan Repayment Assistance Issued Last Week

The following three reports were issued last week:

• "The Arbitration Trap: How Credit Card Companies Ensnare Consumers" was released by Public Citizen
• "Medical Injustice: The Case Against Health Courts" was released by the American Association for Justice
• "Federal Student Loan Repayment Assistance for Public Interest Lawyers and Other Employees of Governments and Nonprofit Organizations" was released by Professor Schrag of Georgetown University Law Center.

More information after the jump.

Public Citizen Report on Mandatory Binding Arbitration with Credit Card Companies
According to a new report from Public Citizen, in cases decided in California during a four-year period, consumers who engaged in binding mandatory arbitration with credit card companies lost 95 percent of the time. The report is entitled "The Arbitration Trap: How Credit Card Companies Ensnare Consumers." It argues that credit card companies use arbitration as a debt collection system and alleges a "cozy and dangerous relationship between credit card companies and the private arbitration firms that decide their binding mandatory arbitration cases."

American Association for Justice Releases Report Criticizing "Health Courts"
A report by Case Western Reserve University professors Max Mehlman and Dale Nance criticizes the idea of "health courts." The report, entitled "Medical Injustice: The Case Against Health Courts," concludes "new health courts bureaucracies would place a massive financial burden on taxpayers and the employers and employees that pay for health care insurance, the decision making process would be controlled at every stage by the insurance industry, and the new bureaucracy would not be affordable without substantial increases in doctors malpractice premiums."

Georgetown Law Professor Explains the "College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007" in a Forthcoming Law Review Article
Georgetown University law professor Philip Schrag has just released a law journal article that explains how the recently passed "Collect Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007" will affect students already working in public interest jobs and makes recommendations for further reforms. The article is entitled "Federal Student Loan Repayment Assistance for Public Interest Lawyers and Other Employees of Governments and Nonprofit Organizations."