Headline News Archive

2011

October

21

• Wal-Mart cuts some health care benefits. After trying to mollify its critics in recent years by offering better health care benefits to its employees, Wal-Mart is substantially rolling back coverage for…

20

• 10 million could pay more Social Security tax. Seniors got good news on Wednesday: Their Social Security checks will go up 3.6% next year because of a cost-of-living increase. That also means an…

19

• Plan would refinance some underwater mortgages. A proposal to allow some creditworthy homeowners to refinance underwater mortgages has become part of settlement talks between government officials and major banks over botched…

• Attorneys general push for Cordray to lead consumer agency. The White House has enlisted a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general to help break a blockade by Senate Republicans of President Obama’s nominee to…

14

• Eating disorders a new front in insurance fight. People with eating disorders like anorexia have opened up a new battleground in the insurance wars, testing the boundaries of laws mandating equivalent coverage for…

13

• Sharp rise in foreclosures as banks move in. More U.S. homes are entering the foreclosure process, but they're taking ever longer to get sold or repossessed by lenders. The number of U.S. homes…

07

• Conquering with complaints. Consumers today are more empowered than ever after they've been wronged by a company. That's because squeaky wheels have more and better ways to squeak.…

• Panel says U.S. should weigh cost in deciding ‘essential health benefits’. The National Academy of Sciences said Thursday that the federal government should explicitly consider cost as a factor in deciding what health benefits must be…

06

• Freddie and Fannie reject debt relief. Home values have fallen so much in Arizona that almost half the people with mortgages there owe more than their homes are worth. So when…

05

• BofA may face HUD fraud claims for defective Countrywide loans. Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, should face fraud claims after its Countrywide unit submitted faulty borrower data for federally insured mortgages, according…

• Suit says banks, mortgage companies cheated veterans and taxpayers. Some of the nation’s biggest banks and mortgage companies have defrauded veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars by disguising illegal fees…

04

• Wall Street protesters hope to plant seeds. New York’s budding anti-capitalism protest movement began last month with a vague sense of grievance over the widening gap between the rich and poor in…

• Fannie Mae knew early of foreclosure abuses. Fannie Mae the mortgage finance giant, learned as early as 2003 of extensive foreclosure abuses among the law firms it had hired to remove troubled…

September

29

• Supreme Court is asked to rule on health care. The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to hear a case concerning the 2010 health care overhaul law. The development, which came unexpectedly…

28

• GM's OnStar reverses course on tracking. General Motors' OnStar division announced Tuesday that it has changed course and decided not to collect driving data from customers who have canceled their OnStar…

• Health insurance costs shifted to workers. Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance continued to escalate this year even as the share of workers getting less generous coverage reached a new high, according…

27

• Freddie Mac loan deal defective, report says. Freddie Mac used a flawed analysis when it accepted $1.35 billion from Bank of America to settle claims that the bank misled it about loans…

22

• Young adults gain health insurance. Nearly 1 million more young adults have obtained health insurance since the 2010 health-care law began requiring insurers to let adult children stay on their…

21

• Using plastic to pay Anthem bill? Prepare to lose your coverage. Andrea Kreuzhage is the kind of customer all health insurers dream of having. She's in excellent shape, never submits medical claims and pays all her…

19

• What to do when a layoff occurs. No one likes to think about being laid off, but in today's shaky economy it can happen to employees even in fields that once seemed…

15

• Buyer Beware: Flood-damaged vehicles will hit market soon. Diane Zielinski bought a used car for her 17-year-old son at a dealership in Quakertown, Pa., about a decade ago. She paid $3,500 for the…

• Foreclosures surge in hardest-hit markets. Significantly more properties entered the foreclosure process during August in the nation's hardest-hit markets, including battered parts of inland California and other areas in the…

• Tight standards make mortgages tough to get. Home buyers such as Bob and Janet Zych have fueled the U.S. housing market for decades. They have excellent credit with scores that top 800,…

13

• Student loan default rates jump. The number of borrowers defaulting on federal student loans has jumped sharply, the latest indication that rising college tuition costs, low graduation rates and poor…

• Reverse mortgages don't always work. Trusted celebrity pitchmen such as Henry Winkler, Robert Wagner and James Garner do a good job telling older homeowners about the benefits of a reverse…