Ohio: Oh 15

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says Ohio workers and communities affected by General Motors' bankruptcy and planned plant closures deserve to know more about what the company and Obama administration will do to aid those being hurt and ensure a viable domestic auto industry in the future.

Jennifer Brunner says that if she's elected to the U.S. Senate next year, one of her priorities will be to toughen the just-passed credit-card bill to limit interest rates consumers can be charged.

Brunner, currently Ohio's secretary of state, is running against Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher for the Democratic nomination.

Brunner lauded the credit-card bill's passage but said last week, "Until this bill becomes law next summer, Americans trying to pay down their credit-card balances will be at risk for being slapped with sudden interest-rate increases, excessive fees, double-cycle billing or charging interest on paid balances, and credit-card companies applying payments to low-interest balances before the higher-interest ones."

Brunner said Congress should quickly cap the amount of interest a company can charge, "so that the bill has some teeth and actually protects everyday Americans when it finally becomes law.

More than 600 payday-lending stores have closed since lawmakers voted to end the business model that allowed them to charge the equivalent of a 391 percent annual interest rate on a two-week loan. Instead, lawmakers tried to limit the rate to 28 percent.

More than 900 payday-lending stores remain in Ohio, and some lawmakers and consumer advocates say the stores are skirting the intent of the new law by using alternative licenses to continue charging fees that bring them close to the 391 percent interest rate.

Rep. Matt Lundy expects to introduce a bill this week that would cap interest at 28 percent for all loans of up to $1,000 made for a term of three months or less, regardless of what license the lender is using.

They just call them fees instead of taxes. One of the most harmful is the proposed hospital franchise fee, which would cost Ohio's cash-strapped hospitals $127 million, $333 million or $411 million, depending on whose plan and estimates one adopts.

The basic arithmetic is this: The state would impose the fee on hospitals and apply the revenue generated to the state's share of Medicaid. That money, combined with similar assessments on other health-care providers, would draw about $2 billion in matching funds from the federal government for the state's Medicaid program.

In return, the governor proposed to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates to hospitals so that they recoup some of the franchise fees they pay.