Primary care physicians and installment loans are two things American society can’t afford to lose. In order to keep the populace healthy in body, people must have access to proper healthcare. If they are to stay healthy in budget, particularly when emergency situations threaten to burst their budget bubble, loans should remain available. Yet when it comes to doctors, that’s exactly what might be happening soon if what the latest Physicians’ Foundation survey is true.

The Physicians’ Foundation is an organization whose purpose is to “advance the work of practicing physicians and to improve the quality of health care for all Americans.” Their commitments are to the safety of patients, doctor education and quality improvement of the physician’s practice.

The survey points to doctors’ great frustration

An overwhelming majority of primary care physicians who responded to the survey – 78 percent – believe that there is already a dangerous shortage of family physicians. As the population grows, the ratio of doctor to patient will likely be stretched to the breaking point. By 2050, it is predicted that 392 million people will be living in North America, so you can see how dire a physician shortage would be.

In much the same way, if government – in concert with banks and credit unions – manage to find a way to eliminate the consumer’s freedom to choose what kind of small-scale emergency financing best suits them – frequently products like installment loans- these customers will be driven to less desirable alternatives. Moreover, as studies like this one by Dartmouth College Assistant Economics Professor Jonathan Zinman indicate, consumers’ economic well-being has been impaired once installment loans services are capped and removed from their communities.

Why are doctors upset?

The news gets worse. Nearly half of the primary physicians who responded to the survey (49 percent), which is more than 150,000 of the total number of practicing doctors who replied, said that they plan to either stop practicing altogether or reduce their number of patients significantly over the next three years.

Why? The Physicians’ Foundation discovered that such issues as increased time dealing with non-clinical paperwork, difficulty obtaining reimbursement and heavy government regulations have all been significant contributors. Physicians say these issues keep them from the most satisfying aspect of their job: patient relationships.

Sandra Johnson, a board member of the Physicians’ Foundation, points the finger squarely at HMOs and government red tape:

The thing we heard over and over again from the physicians was that they’re unhappy they can’t spend more time with their patients, which is why they went into primary care in the first place.

Don’t let government red tape hinder your right to choose

If you don’t want to lose your family care physician, write your state representative and demand that they fight big HMOs and put medical choices back in the hands of the people. When it comes to your economic choices and the right to select installment loans, you should keep in touch with your elected officials in a similar manner. Don’t let anyone take away the freedoms you’ve been guaranteed as an American in the U.S. Constitution.

Soon after the New Jersey legislature passed a tough law aimed at controlling predatory lending, State Sens. John Adler (D., Camden) and Gerald Cardinale (R., Bergen) teamed up to sponsor a bill that weakened it.

Quoted With Edits From: Predatory lending is an issue in N.J. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Are lenders funneling in money to Adler's Campaign?

Ah, I see how it is. Adler and Cardinale came back to reality when they realized – after some reasonable discussion with lobbyists, which is the way things get done in America – that tighter controls would very likely restrict short term installment loans and other legitimate lenders that have a right to be in business. In much the same way, the people of New Jersey have every right to make their own financial decisions. They can choose how they deal with their money, and where they turn if they need a bit of reasonably priced assistance.

For Adler, however, it gets ugly. Since he’s running for Congress, his across-the-aisle Republican counterpart isn’t playing nice. Cardinale is claiming that Adler made the move to ease restrictions because installment loans lenders are funneling money into his campaign. How convenient: built-in attack ad opportunities!

The final version of the Adler-Cardinale bill does help consumers by reducing the amount charged by lenders. So long as the amount enables legitimate short term installment loans companies to stay in business, their right to profitable business remains intact and consumers’ right to the product when they want it or need it stands unsullied.

Installment loans offer consumers the freedom of choice when it comes to those emergency situations where the budget won’t stretch quite far enough to cover an unexpected expense. However, if we are to buy into Melissa Blasius’s of NBC 12 News report, we would assume that just because the bad credit installment loans industry has spent a large amount of money to support YES on 200 efforts means that they are self-serving and are not interested in real reform.

Blasius breaks out the common and oh-so-misinformed “400

PERCENT APR!” yawner, which has no bearing on payday loans, short term loans or anything related. Payday loans are TWO-WEEK loans, not annual loans. The percentage rate a consumer pays is 15 percent if their lender charges $15 per $100 loaned. The fixation on APR (annual percentage rate) that the media, banks and credit unions have is based originally upon the 1968 Truth in Lending Act, but now it’s merely a false rallying point.

Short term installment loans operate differently. As the name implies, they work on an installment basis, making repayment much easier. Plus, the consumer is the one who chooses their debit date.

Banks and credit unions want short term lenders put out of business because they pose too much competition for their big moneymaker: check overdraft protection fees. If you want to talk scary interest rates, take a gander at this report from the Center for American Progress. Americans are paying in excess of $17.5 billion per year. Ouch!

If you want to know the REAL deal about why you should vote YES on 200 in Arizona, check out this site. Then you’ll see why short term installment loans are useful, inexpensive compared to the options banks and credit unions would like you to have and essential if we are to maintain the consumer’s freedom of choice when it comes to how they will manage their finances.

In what has been shaping up to be a year of bad economic news for Americans, here’s something we should all sit up and take notice of. I’m talking about the protection of online speech. If juggernauts the size of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo can get behind a global code of conduct that protects our online freedoms, it seems to me that legislation protecting an individual’s financial freedom to select payday installment loans when they need them.

It’s the Global Network Initiative

Clearly, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo had something to learn about freedom of speech, so they’re looking to mend the error of their ways. Specifically, they’re looking to turn a new leaf after cooperating with Chinese government censorship and demanding information from the companies regarding political dissidents.

But it appears they have the right idea now. According to a draft of the Global Network Initiative, the “Big Three” are committed to “avoiding or minimizing the impact of government restrictions on freedom of expression.”

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are poised to avoid the kind of mistakes AT&T, Verizon Communications and Sprint Nextel made in 2005 when they cooperated with the National Security Agency in episodes of warrantless surveillance that President Bush signed off on.

Oddly enough, the three offending telcos haven’t signed on with the Global Network Initiative. Installment loans are supported by small-business legislation, however.

Who’s supporting the Big Three’s efforts?

As if they needed help…

The Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights in China, Business for Social Responsibility, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Calvert Group are all behind this global stand for freedom of speech online.

Yet there are detractors. Morton Sklar of the World Organization for Human Rights USA sees the Global Network Initiative as a very broad list of guidelines. Sklar has some experience with matters of human rights in China. That does pertain to the online censorship in China, so his opinion has weight.

I’m entirely more hopeful, however.

I see the Global Network Initiative as a very positive step in the direction of a global market that permits the free exchange of ideas. This is a human rights issue, much as individual financial freedom is a human rights issue. Short term installment loans are the right on any consumer who needs monetary assistance in an emergency. Exercise you freedom of speech online and your economic freedom with a loan if you need one.