DAILY UPDATE: UnitedHealthcare Settlement, CFPB and Pharmaceutical Company Checks

Posted on February 3, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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UnitedHealthcare has agreed to a $2.5 million settlement in response to a class action lawsuit accusing the company of making unauthorized telemarketing calls. More than 12,000 individuals may be entitled to compensation, with payouts ranging from $350 to $1,000 per person, depending on how many claims are filed.

The lawsuit, filed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), alleges that UnitedHealthcare placed calls to individuals without their consent between January 9, 2015, and January 9th, 2019. If you received these calls, you could be eligible for a cash settlement—but you must act before April 15th, 2025.

CITE: https://tinyurl.com/2h47urt5

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump has fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, in the latest purge of a Biden administration holdover. Chopra was one of the more important regulators from the previous Democratic administration who was still on the job since Trump took office on Jan. 20th.

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A 2020 STAT analysis found more than two-thirds of Congress receiving a check from pharmaceutical companies that year. More recent data from Open Secrets likewise confirms that a large majority of leaders serving in the U.S. Congress and Senate receive significant contributions from pharmaceutical or health products companies, averaging $45,000 and $47,000 for Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives, respectively — and $50,000 and $69,000 for Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.

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DAILY UPDATE: United Health Owned Insurance Fined and CFPB Hides Medical Debt as Nvidia Leads Stock Markets Down

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Three UnitedHealth-owned insurance companies must pay over $165 million for misleading thousands of customers in Massachusetts into paying for additional health insurance, a state judge has ruled.

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Nvidia stock (NVDA) tumbled more than 6% Tuesday, a day after shares closed at a record high in anticipation of CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote at the tech industry’s annual CES trade show in Las Vegas.

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Dow ends down nearly 180 points, NASDAQ tumbles 1.9% as Treasury yields surge after job-openings, ISM services data

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The Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a new rule Tuesday that will hide an estimated $49 billion in medical debt from credit reports. The rule, which is slated to affect 15 million Americans, prohibits the inclusion of medical bills on credit reports and bars creditors from using medical information in making lending decisions. The policy specifically targets national credit-reporting companies Equifax, Experian and Transunion, which provide detailed evaluations of consumer finances to banks, employers and landlords.

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DAILY UPDATE: MBAs, Apple and Goldman Sachs as Stock Markets Mixed

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Applications to MBA programs are up 12% in 2024 after declining for two years, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, which surveys business school admissions offices.

Apple and Goldman Sachs were ordered to pay $89 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for failing to address thousands of consumer disputes of Apple Card transactions.

Apple is cutting production of Vision Pro due to slow sales. The tech giant is scaling down production of its $3,500 Vision Pro VR headset and might halt assembly of new ones next month,

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STOCKS UP

  • UPS delivered a strong earnings report, with revenue beating analyst expectations for the first time in two years. Shares popped 5.28%.
  • ServiceNow rose 5.41% to a new all-time high thanks to a beat-and-raise third-quarter earnings report powered by higher AI demand for the enterprise software company.
  • Whirlpool climbed 11.20% after announcing solid earnings and reiterating guidance for the rest of the fiscal year, reassuring worried shareholders.
  • Molina Healthcare soared 17.67% after beating both top and bottom line estimates in the third quarter, thanks to the health insurer reaping the rewards of higher Medicaid payouts.

STOCKS DOWN

  • IBM dropped 6.17% on disappointing third-quarter results, missing on both top and bottom line forecasts thanks to lower consulting and infrastructure revenue.
  • Peloton pedaled higher yesterday after Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn declared that the company was undervalued while he was pedaling on a Peloton. The stunt only worked for a quick sprint, though, with shares back down 2.07% today.
  • TKO Group Holdings got hit with a piledriver after the owner of the WWE and UFC announced it is acquiring several entertainment companies, including Professional Bull Riders. Investors bucked shares off 8.69%.
  • Keurig Dr. Pepper fizzled 4.80% thanks to lower sales last quarter, though the company is trying to bolster revenue by acquiring energy drink maker Ghost.
  • Air taxi startup Lilium crashed 61.50% on the news that its main subsidiaries have run out of cash and are filing for insolvency.

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Here’s where the major benchmarks ended:

  • The S&P 500® index (SPX) rose 12.44 points (0.21%) to 5,809.86; the $DJI fell 140.59 points (–0.33%) to 42,374.36; and the NASDAQ Composite® ($COMP) added 138.83 points (0.76%) to 18,415.49.
  • The 10-year Treasury note yield fell four basis points to 4.20%.
  • The CBOE Volatility Index® (VIX) was about flat at 19.18.

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Visualize: How private equity tangled banks in a web of debt, from the Financial Times.

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DAILY UPDATE: MyChart, Meta, Zelle and Acadia as the DJIA Rises

Posted on September 28, 2024 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Stat: 150. That’s how many health systems use AI to help draft replies on MyChart, sometimes without disclosing this to patients. (the New York Times)

Contained in a roughly 200-page quarterly filing from JPMorgan Chase last month were eight words that underscore how contentious the bank’s relationship with the government has become. The lender disclosed that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could punish JPMorgan for its role in Zelle, the giant peer-to-peer digital payments network. The bank is accused of failing to kick criminal accounts off its platform and failing to compensate some scam victims.

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Stocks Up

Bristol-Myers Squibb rose 1.56% after the FDA approved its new drug for schizophrenia, the first new treatment of its kind in decades. Some analysts expect the drug, Cobenfy, to bring in $6 billion in peak annual revenue.

  • Trump Media gained 5.58% despite a co-founder of its Truth Social platform cashing out nearly all of his shares—worth about $100 million at current prices.
  • Chinese EV maker Nio added another 12.80% to bring its weekly gains to nearly 25%. It’s benefiting from the overall euphoria around Chinese stocks and anticipation over its quarterly delivery numbers due next week.
  • Speaking of the Chinese government’s stimulus measures, investors are wagering that the Macau locations of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (up 5.59%) and Wynn Resorts (up 7.24%) will see more visitors.
  • IonQ, a quantum computing company based in College Park, MD (go Terps), shot up 20.47% after inking a contract with the US Air Force Research Lab.

Stocks down

  • Nvidia dropped 2.17%. Bloomberg reported that the Chinese government is ramping up the pressure on local tech companies to move away from using Nvidia AI chips and lean more on domestic suppliers.
  • WeightWatchers, whose shares are down more than 90% this year, booted its CEO Sima Sistani, who pivoted the company to weight-loss drugs. Investors aren’t betting a change at the top will lead to a turnaround, sending shares 2.11% lower on the day.
  • Globe Life sank 4.74% after the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the life insurance company tolerated a “pervasive pattern of harassing conduct” at one of its top sales agencies, per Business Insider.

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Here’s where the major benchmarks ended:

  • The S&P 500® index (SPX) lost 7.20 points (–0.13%) to 5,738.17 to end the week up 0.62%; the Dow Jones Industrial Average® ($DJI) added 137.89 points (0.33%) to 42,313.00 to end the week up 0.59%; the NASDAQ Composite® ($COMP) fell 70.70 points (–0.39%) to 18,119.59 to end the week up 0.95%.
  • The 10-year Treasury note yield (TNX) fell four basis points to 3.75%, up two basis points for the week.
  • The CBOE Volatility Index® (VIX) jumped to 16.64.

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Meta is facing a fine of $102 million for storing some users’ passwords in “plaintext”. The social media giant has admitted to poor password management.

Acadia and the Department of Justice just reached a ~$20M agreement to settle accusations that the company billed Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE for medically unnecessary inpatient mental health services. Acadia found itself under pressure after a New York Times investigation published earlier in September allegedly found that the company kept patients in facilities against their will to maximize insurance payments.

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DAILY UPDATE: MDMA, Stellantis & Zelle While Correlation is not Causation

Posted on August 11, 2024 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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The FDA declined to approve MDMA as a PTSD treatment, which would have been a big step forward for psychedelics use in mental health care, saying further study is needed. But the agency did approve a nasal spray to treat severe allergic reactions as an alternative to shots like EpiPen.

Stellantis will lay off 2,450 factory workers this year as it phases out an older version of its Ram pickup truck.

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Scams via Zelle, the payment service you turn to when you run out of wedding gift ideas, are the subject of an ongoing inquiry by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Wall Street Journal reported this week. Zelle was founded in 2017 by seven of the biggest US banks to compete with peer-to-peer payment apps like Venmo and Cash App. It outgrew its rivals but became a magnet for scams, which customers typically don’t get reimbursed for.

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Correlate: A website that shows spurious correlations.

Visualize: How private equity tangled banks in a web of debt, from the Financial Times.

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MEDICAL DEBT: Remains a Household Strain

Posted on July 15, 2024 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

Report underscores ongoing concerns about accuracy of collections data, particularly with respect to medical debt

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According to Gabriella Cruz-Martinez, tens of millions of debt collections disappeared from Americans’ credit reports during the pandemic, a new government watchdog report found, but overdue medical bills remain a big strain on many households nationwide. The total number of debt collections on credit reports dropped by 33% from 261 million in 2018 to 175 million in 2022, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while the share of consumers with a debt collection on their credit report shrunk by 20%.

Medical debt collections also dropped by 17.9% during that time, but still made up 57% of all collection accounts on credit reports, far more than other types of debt combined — including credit cards, utilities, and rent accounts. Despite the reduction in collections, the CFPB noted that the results underscore ongoing concerns that current medical billing and collection practices can lack transparency, often hurting the credit scores and financial health of those most vulnerable.

“Our analysis of credit reports provides yet another indicator that, due to a strong labor market and emergency programs during the pandemic, household financial distress reduced over the last two years,” Rohit Chopra, CFPB director said in a statement. “However, false and inaccurate medical debt on credit reports continues to drag on household financial health.”

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DAILY UPDATE: Father’s Day, Medical Debt and USAA

Posted on June 16, 2024 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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HAPPY FATHER’S DAY

News 4 in San Antonio Texas organized a video call with several USAA members who lost funds due to fraud — and have been left with little to no recourse. Some of them also belong to the Facebook group, USAA Fraud and Victims, which has 2,900 members. A few USAA members even reported being asked by the institution to cover the negative balances on their accounts after their money was stolen.

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The race to a $3 trillion market cap seemed like it would always be between Apple and Microsoft. But over the last twelve months, Nvidia has come roaring to the front of the pack, neck and neck with the big tech incumbents. In the last two weeks alone it has replaced Apple in the #2 spot, only to be supplanted earlier this week when Apple’s AI plans propelled it back ahead. Now, it’s anybody’s race to the next big benchmark: a $4 trillion market cap.

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In a move that could be good for patients but bad for hospitals, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Tuesday proposed regulation that would wipe medical debt from many consumers’ credit reports. The rule is meant to help the 15 million people in the US who creditors say still have a combined $49 billion of medical debt that negatively affects their credit scores, Rohit Chopra, director of the CFPB, said during a June 11 press briefing. About 100 million people in the US have some amount of medical debt, which totals roughly $220 billion, according to data from the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. The proposed regulation comes after three credit-reporting conglomerates—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—removed paid-off medical debt and medical debts under $500 from credit reports in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

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DAILY UPDATE: Citigroup, CBO, CFPB, Spiked Treasury Yields and the Mixed Stock Markets

Posted on May 29, 2024 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Stat: $78 million. That’s the fine levied against Citigroup for an accidental, “fat finger” trade that momentarily erased $322 billion in market value in the European stock markets. (Business Insider)

Quote: “The CFPB wants to make sure that these new competitive offerings are not gaining an advantage by sidestepping the rights and responsibilities enshrined under the law.”—Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on the CFPB’s decision to treat “buy now, pay later” apps as credit cards.

CITE: https://www.r2library.com/Resource

Here’s where the major benchmarks ended yesterday:

  • The S&P 500® index (SPX) rose 1.32 points (0.02%) to 5,306.04; the Dow Jones Industrial Average® ($DJI) lost 216.73 points (0.6%) to 38,852.86; the NASDAQ Composite gained 99.09 points (0.6%) to 17,019.88.
  • The 10-year Treasury note yield jumped almost 7 basis points to 4.54%.
  • The CBOE Volatility Index® (VIX) rose 0.55 to 12.91.

Financial shares were among Tuesday’s weakest performers, reflecting ideas elevated interest rates could burden bank margins. The KBW Regional Bank Index (KRX) sank 1% to its lowest close since April 30. Biotechnology and health care sectors were also under pressure.

In other markets, WTI Crude Oil (/CL) futures jumped more than 3% and ended at a four-week high above $80 per barrel ahead of next weekend’s OPEC meeting, which is expected to end with no change to the cartel’s production levels.

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House Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said that site-neutral payment policy is the “most obvious” solution amid supportive testimonies from partisan think-tanks, the Congressional Budget Office and a practicing independent physician. 

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BUSTED: Bank of America as Inflation Cools?

Posted on July 12, 2023 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

By Staff Reporters

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BofA must refund $100 million to customers, pay $90 million in penalties to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and $60 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. “Bank of America wrongfully withheld credit card rewards, double-dipped on fees, and opened accounts without consent,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, in a statement.

“These practices are illegal and undermine customer trust.”

Combined, it is one of the highest financial penalties in years against Bank of America, which has largely spent the last 15 years trying to clean up its reputation and market itself to the public as a bank focused on financial health and not on overdraft fee income and financial trickery.

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The latest reading ion core inflation indicates a notable cool-down in June but still exceeds the Federal Reserve’s inflation target of 2%.

Data just released exceeded the expectations of economists surveyed by Bloomberg, who expected inflation to have fallen to 3.1% in June. Inflation rose a modest 0.2% on a monthly basis, accelerating from a 0.1% increase in May. Despite the encouraging report, core inflation — which strips out volatile food and energy prices — rose 4.8%.

Food prices, meanwhile, continued to accelerate faster than overall inflation, rising 5.7% in June compared to a year ago. and, the price of flour rose about 12% in June compared to a year ago, roughly quadruple of the overall inflation rate; while the price of bakery products rose 9.5% over that period and the price of cookies rose nearly 9%.

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BEWARE: Mobile Payment Service Apps Lack FDIC Insurance

Posted on June 4, 2023 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

Mobile money, mobile money transfers and mobile wallets

By Staff Reporters

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DEFINITION: A mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device, as the cardinal class of digital wallet. Instead of paying with cash, cheque, or credit cards, a consumer can use a payment app on a mobile device to pay for a wide range of services and digital or hard goods. Although the concept of using non-coin-based currency systems has a long history, it is only in the 21st century that the technology to support such systems has become widely available.

Mobile payments began adoption in Japan in the 2000s and later all over the world in different ways. The first patent exclusively defined “Mobile Payment System” was filed in 2000.

Don’t use Mobile Payment Services to Park Cash, CFPB Warns.

Venmo may not be that much better than stuffing bills under your mattress when it comes to keeping your money safe long term, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently cautioned.

The app and others, like CashApp, Apple Pay, and PayPal, aren’t banks, so the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation doesn’t provide insurance for funds stored there, the CFPB pointed out. The agency said there are billions of dollars at risk if these apps suffer an SVB-like bank failure.

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UPDATE: Recession, Goldman Sachs, and Tesla

Posted on August 5, 2022 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

By Staff Reporters

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The director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office [CBO] added his voice Thursday to those economists who say it’s unclear if the economy has hit a downturn, despite posting two straight quarterly drops in growth. “The U.S. economy shows signs of slowing, but whether the economy is currently in a recession is difficult to say,” wrote CBO Director Phillip Swagel in a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “It is possible that, in retrospect, it will become apparent that the economy moved into recession sometime this year. However, that is not clear from data that were available at the beginning of August,” Swagel added.

Goldman Sachs said its credit card unit is under investigation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency tasked with protecting Americans from financial abuse. In a securities filing, Goldman said the CFPB is examining a number of the company’s credit card account management practices, including refunds, resolving billing errors, advertisements and reporting to credit bureaus. And, in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch, Goldman said the bank “is cooperating with the CFPB on this matter.”

Finally, shares of electric vehicle maker Tesla rallied in after-hours trading as the company won shareholder approval for a 3:1 stock split, the second such move in two years, as the world’s most valuable automaker looks to make its stock more affordable.

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FINANCIAL PLANNING: https://www.routledge.com/Comprehensive-Financial-Planning-Strategies-for-Doctors-and-Advisors-Best/Marcinko-Hetico/p/book/9781482240283

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