Many Americans are using short term loans to fund their health care. The health care situation is a number one priority these days. The Obama administration is currently debating the proposed changes and trying to come up with legislation to extend health care coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. While they debate, however, many people have to find strategic ways of dealing with their hefty health care bills.

Ways to find coverage

Most Americans who are employed have employer provided health insurance. If you do, make sure you research your policy and find out when your company has open enrollment. Many times you’ll find a number of providers and each one offers different benefits. Be sure you understand what each one brings to the table in terms of your health care. Here are some questions to ask yourself when reviewing your options:

• Have your needs changed?
• Have your dependents changed?
• If you have health problems, are there lower co-pay options?
• If you don’t have health problems, are there lower premium options?
• Is there a flexible spending account option?
• Are there any employee incentives like stopping smoking or losing weight?

These are all questions to ask when looking over your current employer-supplied health care. You want to maximize the coverage and minimize the premium.

What if you opt out?

Many people choose to opt out of their employer’s health care plan and set out to find their own. You can find a health savings account, or HSA, on your own. These are accounts that you pay into and then can be used to fund your health care.

Remember though that with HSAs there are some rules. The IRS allows contributions of $2,900 for individuals and $5,800 for families. Also, these accounts are transferable if you move to another job, unlike flexible spending accounts. Having extra money to fund your health care can be a huge advantage if you fall ill. In other instances there may be the need for savings withdrawal or short term loans to cover the bills, but with HSAs the money is already there.

Finding coverage on your own

Some people are proponents of finding health care themselves. Mary Stonestreet, inventory analysts in Pasadena, Calif., said, “I have always had my own insurance. It makes more sense for me to find coverage that is customized to my needs, rather than to the company providing it.” Stonestreet is not alone in her thinking—more and more Americans are finding it beneficial to take care of their own needs themselves. If you are one of them, or if you are self-employed, a good starting place is at eHealthInsurance.com. Because health care varies by state, it’s best to do some research with a good resource before picking the coverage you want.

Health care for the retired

When it comes to retirement-aged Americans, the rules regarding health care change. Medicare is supposed to be available once you turn 65, but analysts are still telling people they should count on needing $215,000 for out-of-pocket medical expenses. That doesn’t include the cost of long-term care but rather it’s just the general expenses it takes to fund uncovered health care for the elderly. In addition, experts are also warning workers that they should not count on their retiree health insurance policies. These are not always reliable and by the time you retire, they could be obsolete altogether.

Finding health care

Finding health care is tricky. Make sure you explore every option and understand your needs. The Obama administration is working to come up with a viable plan for covering millions of uninsured Americans, but until that happens people need to do their own homework. In the midst of the negotiations, expect health care costs to remain high, and get even higher. It may take savings and short term loans in combination to fund health care while the nation waits on the new heath care bill to come.

Apply for short term loans HERE

The Obama administration is working hard to reform laws for companies who issue credit cards. On May 22, the president signed off on the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure, or Credit CARD, act of 2009.

The bill is set to improve the way companies deal with consumers and act as a watchdog agency that protects users. Here are some of the benefits of the new law.

Increases are retroactive

Card companies can no longer raise rates on an existing balance unless the customer is 60 or more days past due. There will no longer be “anytime, any reason” clauses that almost every credit company employed in former contracts.

If the cardholder does trigger the default rate, the bank has to be willing to restore the rate if the cardholder maintains six consecutive on-time payments. Rates also can’t be raised the first year after the card is issued and low introductory rates have to last at least six months.

Rate hikes

Lending companies are still able to raise credit card rates, but they have to give consumers 45 days notice before the new rate is effective. This can help consumers to budget more wisely and switch to new credit cards if needed. Currently, notification time is only 15 days.

Gail Scherwood, a consumer in Billings, Montana stated, “The notice we received was dated two weeks prior, but we didn’t get it until four days before the increase. That didn’t seem fair.” This new rule hopes to resolve this issue, and give customers time to react to pending increases.

Fees

Fees are another hot topic with credit cards. Cardholders no longer will face over-limit fees “unless they elect to allow the creditor to approve over limit transactions.” Also, in general banks won’t be able to charge fees to consumers who pay their bills over the phone or online.

The only fee they will be able to tack on is an expediting fee at the consumer’s request. In addition, if cardholders pay at a bank’s branch, the payment must be posted same-day to avoid late fees.

Student credit cards

There are restrictions on students ages 18 to 21. This consumer group has to have:

1. An adequate income or a co-signer
2. Attended a financial literacy course

If they don’t have both, they won’t be approved for a credit card. This law protects young people who, in the past, were heavy targets for the credit card industry. As a result, many young people were overwhelmed with debt because of the “free” credit cards they were being inundated with. A recent survey showed that the average college student is holding $3,173 in credit card debt. This is a record high since 1998 when the first study was done.

Double-cycle billing is over

Another result of the new credit CARD law is a ban on double-cycle billing. This is when credit card companies base their finance charge on the current and previous balances. This allowed companies to charge interest on debt already paid from the previous month.

Payment allocations

Previously, payments were applied to lower-rate balances first, thus bringing in fees and interest rates on higher balances. Credit card companies are no longer able to do this. The new law requires that any “above minimum payment is applied first to the credit card balance with the highest interest rate.” This could save thousands for consumers.

More time

Finally, consumers will have more time to pay. Card companies must send out statements to consumers 21 days prior to payment due dates. This will give people adequate time to make their payments and adjust their budgets.

Credit CARD

The new law for credit cards should be enacted shortly. It will do a lot to monitor companies’ actions and protect card users. President Obama’s goal was to set in motion a safeguard for credit users, and this law is the first step to reaching that goal.

Related Video:

A restaurant in New Orleans suggests "Foreclose on the Banks." Image from Flickr.

The media and Uncle Sam want us to believe that times are getting better and that we are crawling out of the recession. In fact, there are some economic indicators that the economy is starting to come around.

The last few weeks have provided an increase in consumer spending, a slight decline in the unemployment rate, and the Dow Jones even broke 10,000. However, this may not be enough of a change to get excited yet. There are major economic indicators that are not providing such positive results.

The high rate of foreclosure

The 3rd quarter of 2009 has seen a record number of homes in some stage of foreclosure. The total number of foreclosures for this period was 938,000 compared to 890,000 for the previous three months. It is estimated by RealtyTrac Inc. that the total number of foreclosures for 2009 will exceed the 3.5 million mark. This is up from 2.3 million for 2008.

Gradual increase in total foreclosures

The pattern for all of 2009 has pointed toward an ever increasing number of foreclosures. Each quarter this year has provided even more staggering numbers than the quarter before it. The first quarter ended with 803,489 which was an increase of 9 percent over the last quarter of 2008. This was followed by an increase of 10.5 percent in the summer months and a 5 percent increase the past quarter.

Total foreclosure filings

The indicated foreclosure rates include default papers, auction sale notices and repossessions. These numbers are being partly blamed on the unemployment rate that is at a 26-year high.

Another major factor of this rate is that housing prices have plummeted, and some homeowners are severely under water – meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. These combined factors can remove the incentive for homeowners to keep up with mortgage payments.

The Government’s solution

The Obama administration has implemented steps to try to curtail home foreclosures from plummeting even further out of control. These steps have been aimed at encouraging financial institutions to offer mortgage modifications to those homeowners that are distressed. One of these programs is Hope Now, an organization set up to assist with mortgage modification negotiations.

Obama announced the beginning of October that 500,000 homeowners have been assisted by the government’s mortgage relief effort. While this is certainly a milestone that should be recognized, this help has been provided to 500,000 distressed homeowners out of the over 2.5 million homeowners that have faced foreclosure so far in 2009. The problem is that the rate of new foreclosures exceeds the rate of those that have been assisted. “The sheer scale of the problem is preventing the loan modification programs from having the kind of impact we’d all like” said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice-president for marketing.

Some areas have seen improvement

While the National numbers are up the rate of foreclosures for some states are actually on a decline. New York has reported a drop in the amount of foreclosures for the third quarter of 2009. The overall numbers of foreclosures for the third quarter in New York were up 19 percent over the same period of the year before, but they are actually down 10 percent from the rate of the previous quarter.

Other states have seen signs of improvement as well. The first quarter of the year, California and Florida had the highest number of foreclosures. As of the third quarter they are ranked third and fourth with Nevada topping off the list.

September’s foreclosure rates are lower

RealtyTrac reported that the number of foreclosures nationwide for September were 344,000 down 4 percent from a month earlier. However, this number is still the third-highest month since the report started in early 2005. It was also the seventh straight month in which more than 300,000 properties filed foreclosure. These numbers may imply that the peak has been reached and the turn-around is slowly beginning. Only the rest of the year will indicate if this trend continues.