The Democratic Candidates and Your Credit Cards

How did all that Experience that Hillary had stop her from voting for a War that has been purely disastrous to the US economy?

Dick Cheney and Rumsfeild had resume's a mile long and look how things turned out under them!

You want experience? Check out why Hillary Clinton was the only First Lady ever indicted! yeah. And the Clinton administration had more scandels than Bush's had...I'm not for Bush no way...but Hillary will be more of the same ....trust me..

Wake Up America of NV 4:00PM April 04, 2008

City Boy, you make a lot of sense. The subprime debacle underscores how little the average consumer understands about the contracts they sign when taking on debt. Some posters seem to pass moral judgment on consumers who don't understand or read the fine print. Can they tell us how many dollars credit card companies have spent on making their terms clear, concise and easy to understand versus how many dollars have been spent to make them obscure, illegible, unintelligible. The universal default clause, overlimit fees, interest on fees... those dire consequences are not made clear on the simplified direct response solitications sent to consumers. The sanctamonious arguments that some make regarding creditors who should know better: same thing said about smokers before the tobacco industry got whacked. Hopefully one day credit cards will carry written warnings: DO NOT USE THIS CARD WITHOUT FIRST CONSULTING AN ACCOUNTANT AND AN ATTORNEY. KNOW THAT USE OF THIS CARD MAY LOWER YOUR CREDIT RATING WHICH IN TURN WILL ALLOW ALL OF YOUR CREDITORS TO RAISE YOUR INTEREST RATES. KNOW THAT IF YOU ARE LATE ON ONE PAYMENT, NOT ONLY WILL YOU BE CHARGED A LATE FEE AND INTEREST ON THAT LATE FEE, BUT DUE TO A UNIVERSAL DEFAULT CLAUSE, EVERY OTHER CREDITOR YOU OWE WILL THEN BE ABLE TO JACK YOUR RATES UP HIGHER, WHICH WILL FURTHER LOWER YOUR CREDIT SCORE AND ALLOW ALL OF YOUR CREDITORS TO FURTHER RAISE YOUR INTEREST RATE. KNOW THAT THIS CREDIT ISSUER PAYS LOBBYISTS TO INFLUENCE YOUR GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES, WHOSE NAMES ARE __________________. DON'T CALL US, CALL THEM. HAVE A NICE DAY.

Almost Debt Free of CA 3:03AM February 24, 2008

Has anyone looked into the demographics of the white male independent voter,who seems to be an overwhelming Obama voter? It seems to me that they are trying to skew the nomination.

M Geri of FL 12:39AM February 20, 2008

I completely agree with Edward (from IL) over the mandated proposal on health insurance set forward by HRC.

Secondly, I would like to add one more point over why this idea will fail to address the masses:

The following are facts that are posted on http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml and here’s what it says:

Who are the uninsured?

• Nearly 47 million Americans, or 16 percent of the population, were without health insurance in 2005, the latest government data available (1).

• The number of uninsured rose 1.3 million between 2004 and 2005 and has increased by almost 7 million people since 2000 (1).

• The large majority of the uninsured (80 percent) are native or naturalized citizens (2).

• The increase in the number of uninsured in 2005 was focused among working age adults. The percentage of working adults (18 to 64) who had no health coverage climbed from 18.5 percent in 2004 to 20.5 percent in 2005 -- an increase of over 800,000 uninsured workers (1). Nearly one (1) million full-time workers lost their health insurance in 2005.

• Nearly 82 million people – about one-third of the population below the age of 65 spent a portion of either 2002 or 2003 without health coverage (3).

• Over 8 in 10 uninsured people came from working families – almost 70 percent from families with one or more full-time workers and 11 percent from families with part-time workers (2).

• The percentage of people (workers and dependents) with employment-based health insurance has dropped from 70 percent in 1987 to 59.5 percent in 2005. This is the lowest level of employment-based insurance coverage in more than a decade (4, 5).

• In 2005, nearly 15 percent of employees had no employer-sponsored health coverage available to them, either through their own job or through a family member (6).

• In 2005, 27.4 million workers were uninsured because not all businesses offer health benefits, not all workers qualify for coverage and many employees cannot afford their share of the health insurance premium even when coverage is at their fingertips (1).

• The number of uninsured children in 2005 was 8.3 million – or 11.2 percent of all children in the U.S. (1). The number of children who are uninsured increased by nearly 400,000 in 2005, breaking a trend of steady declines over the last five years.

• Young adults (18-to-24 years old) remained the least likely of any age group to have health insurance in 2005 – 30.6 percent of this group did not have health insurance (1).

• Based on a three year average (2003-2005), people of Hispanic origin were the least likely to have health insurance. An average of 32.6 percent of Hispanics were without health insurance during that period (1).

• Nearly 40 percent of the uninsured population reside in households that earn $50,000 or more (1). A growing number of middle-income families cannot afford health insurance payments even when coverage is offered by their employers.

Why is the number of uninsured people increasing?

• Millions of workers don't have the opportunity to get health coverage. A third of firms in the U.S. did not offer coverage in 2005 (4).

• Nearly two-fifths (38 percent) of all workers are employed in smaller businesses, where less than two-thirds of firms now offer health benefits to their employees (7). It is estimated that 266,000 companies dropped their health coverage between 2000-2005 and 90 percent of those firms have less than 25 employees.

• Rapidly rising health insurance premiums are the main reason cited by all small firms for not offering coverage. Health insurance premiums are rising at extraordinary rates. Over the past five years the average annual increase in inflation has been 2.5 percent while health insurance premiums for small firms have escalated an average of 12 percent annually (4).

• Even if employees are offered coverage on the job, they can't always afford their portion of the premium. Employee spending for health insurance coverage (employee's share of family coverage) has increased 143 percent between 2000 and 2006 (8).

• Losing a job, or quitting voluntarily, can mean losing affordable coverage – not only for the worker but also for their entire family. Only seven (7) percent of the unemployed can afford to pay for COBRA health insurance – the continuation of group coverage offered by their former employers. Premiums for this coverage average almost $700 a month for family coverage and $250 for individual coverage, a very high price given the average $1,100 monthly unemployment check (9).

• Coverage is unstable during life's transitions. A person's link to employer-sponsored coverage can also be cut by a change from full-time to part-time work, or self-employment, retirement or divorce (10).

And it’s very clear from the above report that people can’t afford to buy health insurance so mandating such costs that’s not affordable does not solve the problem for masses. But instead it gives them nightmare over how they are going to make those payments. Secondly, I’m not sure whether HRC has any plan for increasing the minimum wage before she mandates every one of the 47 million uninsured people to buy health insurance. Lastly, if you have looked at the above stats closely, it clearly states that the cost of health insurance been rising on an average of 12% ever yr. Now, instead of curbing the costs, how would a mandatory health insurance will help those who could not afford the premium now?

In comparison to HRC, I admire Obama’s approach to handle this issue by making health insurance affordable, which will lead to lowering the costs for everyone not just 47 million uninsured people. And most of all what matters to everyone is the co-pays, insurance premiums, cost of medicines, etc, thus just imposing a mandatory health insurance on people will get them covered but eventually will leave a big hole in their paychecks if the costs of these items are controlled or reduced.

Think wisely people, it’s not a question of universal healthcare but rather a question of how much damage it may cost on your paychecks in longer run.

Cheers!!

Harry of NY 1:56PM February 18, 2008