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Most Americans of working age get their health insurance through their employers. The Democrats running for President want to keep it that way. The Republicans don’t. If you listen to what each party says about the other, you would get a very different impression. To hear the Democrats tell it, the Republicans are happy with the health-care system we have: all they do is stand in the way of Democratic improvements.

But the truth is that it’s the Republicans who make more radical proposals. They want to make a break with more than six decades of government policy. During World War II, employers started giving workers health benefits to get around wartime wage controls. Since then, the government has continued to give a tax break for employer-provided health insurance; it isn’t taxed, the way wages are.

That’s how we ended up with the health-insurance system we have now, based on employers. You get a tax break if you get your insurance through your job. If you get a raise and use it to buy your own insurance instead, you have to pay taxes on that money. (Ditto if you use your raise to pay doctors directly.) Almost everyone takes the tax break. The market for insurance bought by individuals is, as a result, small and stunted, which is all the more reason to stay in the employer system. (more…)

NEW YORK (AP) — The malaise in the mortgage market is starting to spread to credit-card and auto loans in what one analyst has dubbed consumer credit “contagion.” It’s an ominous warning signal for the economy. Many of the nation’s big banks and credit-card companies have begun acknowledging that they are seeing a shift in consumer behavior, including more people unable pay off their debts.

Things are unraveling faster than expected for some like Capital One Financial Corp., which on Tuesday boosted its estimates for credit losses next year to potentially above $5 billion in part because of elevated delinquencies on its cards.

No one is calling this problem the next debt-related land mine yet, but it is still important to watch what happens, especially as the holiday shopping season gets under way.

Much attention has been paid in recent months to the collapse in housing prices and the upheaval in the mortgage market. The initial trigger was people with shaky credit — known as subprime borrowers — increasingly defaulting on their home loans.

An added complication was that many Americans used their homes as piggy banks in recent years. When debt was cheap and easy to get and the value of their homes was surging, they borrowed against them. People used part of that cash to pay off other debts, but mostly to fuel a spending surge on everything from flat-screen TVs to new cars to vacation homes. (more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Health care spending for people under 65 is growing faster than for those over that benchmark age, the government reported Tuesday. While the growing number of older Americans has been expected to alter patterns of health spending, the impact has been only modest and is expected to remain that way, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

Not surprisingly, per person spending is higher for older people than younger ones

But it has not been growing as fast as costs for working-age people, CMS reported in a paper in the journal Health Affairs.

Among the elderly, the largest decline in spending relative to younger people occurred among those age 85 and older. Spending for this group was 6.9 times higher than spending by the working-age population in 1987, but only 5.7 times higher in 2004.

For those 65 and over health costs were 3.5 times higher than working age people in 1987 and 3.3 times higher in 2004. (more…)

Have you ever worked for a temporary employment service before? If so, do you recall seeing small brochures that offered you health insurance coverage that you could have taken out of your weekly pay? If you’re like most other people, at some point you’ve run across these types of short term health insurance policies, whether you first saw them at a temporary employment service agency or not.

Short term health insurance is designed for individuals with or without families that are in transition in their life. They could be between jobs and need short term health insurance until they can find permanent employment. They may have just graduated from college and their student health insurance is no longer in force. These new graduates will need a new health insurance policy until they find permanent employment. Another reason for buying short term health insurance would be the mandatory waiting period that new employees must go through when they start out in a new job. These waiting periods are usually 90 days to six months, however, some plans only offer enrollment once per year during a certain time frame called a “window”. Here’s an example of this type of plan. (more…)

The percentage of Californians who get health insurance through their jobs is among the lowest in the country, according to a study released Thursday. Nationwide, about 63 percent of Americans have health policies offered by their employers. But in California, only 55.7 percent of workers were covered through their jobs last year, making it the state with the fifth-lowest level of employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

The number of employers offering health insurance has fallen nationally in recent years due to rising premiums and the diminishing bargaining power of the average worker. Companies have responded to the pressure by requiring employees to pick up a larger portion of the tab, through higher co-payments and monthly contributions, and reducing benefits and coverage for spouses and children.

In California, the problem is worse due to the sheer size of the population and the fact a large number of residents work in jobs that typically do not offer health insurance, such as agriculture, hospitality and the service industry. (more…)

A lot of people choose to refinance their loans to take advantage of reduced rates in order to lower their payments or to obtain a shorter-term loan. Individuals may want to refinance their existing loan or mortgage for several reasons.

One reason why several people opt for refinancing is to reduce their interest rate and, as a result, lower their payments. It is imperative to pay attention to upfront costs of refinancing against the likely savings in their monthly payment. A frequent rule of thumb is to attempt to recover the cost of refinancing within two years.

Another reason why individuals decide to refinance is to reduce their mortgage term in order to pay off their loan faster. When existing market rates of interest are lower than the present mortgage rate, refinancing to a shorter-term mortgage can save individuals a really large sum of money in interest costs over the life of the loan. This may be the case despite the fact that the monthly payments stay the same, or increase. Equity will increase faster, and an individual will also be in a position to pay the loan sooner. (more…)

WASHINGTON | Nearly 1.8 million U.S. veterans are without health insurance, and more than half of them said they had no place to go when they were sick, researchers reported Tuesday. The finding contradicts many Americans’ assumption that all veterans qualify for free health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The uninsured veterans are primarily low- to middle-income workers, ages 44 to 64, who are too poor to afford private insurance coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or VA health care, the Harvard Medical School researchers said.

Analyzing data from two federal surveys, the researchers found that more than one-fourth of the uninsured veterans said they did not get needed medical care or delayed it because of its cost. Nearly half said they had not had an office visit or contact with a health professional in more than a year, and two-thirds said they received no preventive care. (more…)

This week, again the mortgage rates dropped down a little. Experts believe that the main reason behind the fall in the mortgage rates is the market’s concern for the slower economic growth during the next few months. The market is also worried about housing slump and how long the market will continue to suffer because of this. These worries were raised due to the recent report of October, which explains that there is some regional manufacturing weakness.

Last week the average interest rate of 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgages was 6.40 percent. This fell down to an average of 6.33 percent for this week. Last year at this point of time the average interest rate of 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgages was 6.40 percent.

This week the average interest rate of 15 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage is 5.99 percent, lower than 6.08 percent of last week. A year ago the average interest rate of 15 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage was 6.10 percent.

This week the interest rate of the 5 Year Treasury indexed hybrid adjustable rate mortgages averaged 6.03 percent, lower than 6.11 percent of last week. Last year at this point of time the average interest rate of 5 Year Treasury indexed hybrid adjustable rate mortgage was 6.14 percent. (more…)