Faces of Virginia’s Coverage Gap

HAV Stories

 

Download a PDF of the story book

Read more about those in the coverage gap, and how VPLC as part of the HAV Coalition is pushing for change to help those in need.

Nearly 421,900 Virginians purchased coverage; Praise Given to VPLC/ENROLL! Virginia

A big “THANK YOU!” goes to Governor McAuliffe and Secretary Hazel. Their leadership and support of efforts to increase access to affordable health coverage throughout Virginia made it possible to achieve such strong enrollment numbers in the Health Insurance Marketplace.

“Having access to health care coverage is critical as we work toward improving the health of all Virginians,” said Secretary of Health and Human Resources Dr. Bill Hazel. “Thanks are due especially to the Virginia Community Healthcare Association, which developed a network of assisters across the state, and the Virginia Poverty Law Center, which worked on outreach and education, and also provided dedicated assisters.”

Read the Governor’s Press Release

VPLC and ENROLL! Virginia also would like to thank and congratulate all of the great organizations that partnered with us to help ensure that as many Virginians as possible were able to get free and unbiased in-person help with their Marketplace applications. Thank you Blue Ridge Legal Services, Celebrate Healthcare, Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, Legal Aid Justice Center, Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia, Legal Services of Northern Virginia, Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley, Neighbors Keeper, Northern Virginia Family Service, Southwest Virginia Legal Aid Society, Virginia Legal Aid Society, Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, Virginia Indigent Defense Commission, and Young Invincibles.

Rubber Stamp Justice: Can’t we stop this abuse?

Rubber Stamp Justice:  Can’t we stop this abuse?

Report Cover Design by Rafael Jimenez

 

Human Rights Watch released a report in January entitled Rubber Stamp Justice:  U.S. Courts, Debt Buying Corporations and the Poor.  This Report does an excellent job shining a light on problems that legal aid attorneys and their clients have been complaining about for years.

“Every year, several hundred thousand people across the United States are sued by companies they have never done business with and may never have heard of. These firms are called debt buyers and although they have never loaned anyone a penny, millions of Americans owe them money. Debt buyers purchase vast portfolios of bad debts—mostly delinquent credit cards—from lenders who have written them off as a loss. They pay just pennies on the dollar but can go after alleged debtors for the full face value of every debt plus interest at rates that routinely exceed 25 percent.

Debt buyers also rely on tax-funded state institutions—namely the court system—to secure much of their income. Leading debt buyers rank among the heaviest individual users of state court systems across the US, and various legal actions and research, including that of Human Rights Watch, have identified repeated patterns of error and lack of legal compliance in their lawsuits.”

Until recently, little has been done about this abuse of our tax-funded system of justice.  Enter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or the CFPB, a creation of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Last July, the CFPB teamed up with state Attorney Generals and ordered JP Morgan Chase to Chase to permanently stop all attempts to collect, enforce in court, or sell more than 528,000 consumers’ accounts and pay $50 million in consumer refunds, $136 million in penalties and payments to the CFPB and states, and a $30 million penalty to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).    Chase sold faulty and false debts to third-party collectors, including accounts with unlawfully obtained judgments, inaccurate balances, and paid-off balances.

Last December, the CFPB sued a Georgie law firm and the Court entered an Order barring the firm from churning out Illegal collections lawsuits and ordered a $3.1 million penalty.    “The Hanna firm relied on deception and faulty evidence to coerce consumers into paying debts that often could not be verified or may not be owed,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Debt collectors that use the court system for purposes of intimidation should reconsider how their practices are harming consumers.

 

On February 23rd, the CFPB announced:  CFPB Orders Citibank to Provide Relief to Consumers for Illegal Debt Sales and Collection Practices .  CFPB ordered Citibank to provide nearly $5 million in consumer relief, pay a $3 million penalty for selling credit card debt with inflated interest rates and for failing to forward consumer payments promptly to debt buyers, and refund $11 million to consumers and forgo collecting about $34 million from nearly 7,000 consumers.  The CFPB also forced two debt collection law firms to dismiss cases and pay fines  for falsifying court documents.

Fines and restitution are important CFPB tools but limits on future conduct are the most important actions taken by the CFPB.  For example:

  • JP Morgan Chase must provide account-level documentation to debt buyers confirming that the debts are accurate and enforceable.
  • JP MorganChase may not sell debts that do not have the required documentation, have been charged off for over three years or where the consumer has not paid for three years, are in litigation, are owed by a servicemember, are owed by someone who is deceased, or where the debtor has a payment plan.
  • Citibank must provide certain account documents when it sells debt, such as the credit agreement and recent account statements.
  • Citibank must stop selling debt it cannot verify: Citibank cannot sell debts if it cannot provide documentation, if the consumers notified Citibank of identity theft or unauthorized use, if consumers allege in writing that they do not owe the amount claimed, or if the account is within 150 days of the end of the statute of limitations.

Debt collectors and debt buyers that abuse the court system now know there is a cop on the beat:  the CFPB.  Is it any wonder that the big banks and others are trying to weaken the CFPB? 

Why does VPLC work so hard on health insurance issues?

Picture from a video of Brent Brown giving a speech about how the Affordable Care Act has helped him

 

Why does VPLC work so hard on health insurance issues?

 

For the third year in a row, VPLC and our many allies tried but failed to get Virginia to close the health insurance coverage gap .  Why do we keep working so hard on this?  Take a look at this video and then try and tell us that it isn’t worth it or that we can’t afford it.  We can and we must.

 

Closing the coverage gap should  not be a partisan issue.  The man in the video says he is a Republican and worked against President Obama’s elections.  He says this to those that are working to repeal the Affordable Care Act:  “I plead with you to reconsider.  Swallow your pride as I am doing right now.. and do what is right.”

 

On a happier note VPLC’s Enroll Virginia continues to be a success and many Virginians are getting health insurance – some for the very first time.  Nearly 421,900 Virginians purchased coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

 

We are representing those that don’t have a voice; those who get care because they can’t afford health insurance, your family member who has cancer, our neighbors who can’t afford their medications. Closing the coverage gap make fiscal sense, and more importantly, it is the right thing to do for our state.  This is the reason VPLC and other partner organizations will continue to advocate for this new health coverage until we succeed.

Poverty and Opportunity in Virginia: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Half in Ten Annual Report Data for States, from http://talkpoverty.org/poverty/

 

Each year, the Center for American Progress releases its “State of the States” report, which evaluates progress toward cutting poverty and increasing opportunity by tracking 15 key indicators in each state.

 

As this report underscores, policy matters when it comes to addressing poverty and improving economic opportunity. State policymakers have a host of tools at their disposal to bring about change that makes a meaningful difference in the lives of American families.

 

So, where does Virginia rank?

#12 in poverty rate: 11.8% of people in Virginia had income below the poverty line (national rate is 14.8%)

 

Where Virginia is Doing best

#1 in Children living apart from parents:  Only 2 children in Virginia lived in foster care for every 1,000 children under age 18 (national average: 5 per 100,000).  Could these favorable numbers be the result of heavy use of “kinship diversion” in Virginia.

#4 in Hunger and Food insecurity: 10.1% of Virginia households experienced food insecurity (national rate: 14%).

#10 in Higher education attainment: 46.5% of young adults had a degree (national rate: 42.3%)

 

Where Virginia is Doing Worst

#43 in Health Insurance Coverage: 26.7% of people under age 65 and below 138% of the poverty line did not have health insurance at any time in 2014 (U.S. uninsured rate = 23.2%)

#43 in Unemployment Coverage: 18.6% of unemployed workers in Virginia were helped by unemployment insurance in 2014. (U.S.: 27.4% or unemployed workers were helped in 2014).  This situation got even worse in 2015 when only 17% of unemployed Virginia workers got help.

#38 in Affordable and Available Housing: Virginia had 57 apartments or other units available and affordable for every 100 renter households with income below 50% of median income where they live (same as national average)

 

By taking a hard look at where their state is succeeding and where it is falling short, advocates, lawmakers, and residents can prioritize future action that would dramatically reduce poverty and increase well-being in their backyard and beyond.  Virginia’s rejection of Medicaid expansion led to our dismal ranking in health insurance coverage.   Poor economic choices by the Virginia General Assembly have led to the near elimination of coverage for Virginia’s unemployed workers.  This comes at a time when many experts say that the nature of work is irrevocably changing, and that workers face a future of more and longer periods of unemployment and underemployment.

Virginia Hunger Solutions Debuts School Breakfast Report with First Lady of Virginia, Dorothy McAuliffe

VHS staff and First Lady’s office, with Dorothy McAuliffe debut the First Annual School Breakfast report at the kick off of National School Breakfast Week

 

Virginia Hunger Solutions (VHS), a project of the Virginia Poverty Law Center in conjunction with the Food Research Action Center (FRAC), debuted their first Annual School Breakfast Report: Food for Thought. The report highlights the marked improvement in implementing Breakfast in the Classroom and the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), across the state of Virginia, telling the story of how these programs can and are helping students across the Commonwealth. First Lady of Virginia Dorothy McAuliffe, a fierce advocate for ending childhood hunger, provided the forward for the report and highlighted it today, while kicking off National School Breakfast Week! A heartfelt thank you to the First Lady and her team, partners at FRAC and the Department of Education for helping VHS make this report a reality. Congratulations to all of the schools divisions who made the top 10 list and who made marked improvements in feeding the Commonwealth’s children over the last year. We should all feel proud to see how far we’ve come, and at the same time, see what work there is left to do to end childhood hunger in Virginia.

Read the Report

View the Press Release

Learn More about VPLC’s work on Hunger and Virginia Hunger Solutions

Jack of All Trades, Master of Justice

A legend in the legal community is retiring.  The Virginia Poverty Law Center and many other organizations working for justice for all in Virginia owe their very existence to Jack Harris.  This article in Virginia Lawyers Weekly calls Jack Harris a jack of all trades.  He is not a “jack of all trades and master of none” but  a jack of all trades and master of justice.

 

Jack Harris was hired as the first director of the Legal Services Corporation of Virginia in 1975  where he helped start numerous legal aid programs around Virginia.  Just three years into that job, he founded the Virginia Poverty Law Center and served as VPLC’s first director for four years.  After 11 years as head of the Legal Services Corporation of Virginia, Jack took over as head of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association for 26 years.  During his tenure at VTLA, he continued to serve on the Board of Directors of both VPLC and LSCV.  His steady hand has kept all these organizations strong and a growing force for justice in Virginia.

 

The Virginia Lawyers Weekly article is full of tributes to Jack “He has incredible energy and commitment. That’s what made him so successful,” “He is the unusual union of intellect, strength, savvy and compassion.” And this tribute in the comments: “Jack’s an incredible “people person”. He reads, anticipates and reacts to others in ways that suggest his interpersonal antennae are always broadcasting and receiving on an encrypted channel which informs him of just the right way to handle every situation, and he does so without the first hint of ego. His genius includes his uncanny ability to resolve the thorniest of problems while letting others believe the solution originated with them.”

 

All the organizations led by Jack will miss him, but we will carry on because he left us with a firm foundation.

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