Comments(1) Pipe down, not that kind of SOB (though if the shoe fits…). Instead, the kind recognized at Successful Blog. I blew past the post that bestowed said honor, just happening to catch it via a linkback search. And, no, Liz, it wasn’t Technorati.
Thanks for spreading the love in the community, Liz!
Comments(0) One of the largest expenses people have, outside of a mortgage, is healthcare. Year after year costs go up faster than the rate of inflation. Even for those lucky enough to have quality employer-sponsored and -funded insurance, times are changing. Premiums, co-pays, and stop-loss limits keep rising. Managed care (think HMOs) were supposed to provide the solution, but they rely too much on secong-guessing and limiting doctors to keep them from giving the treatment they would otherwise give, turning health decisions into business decisions.
Tonight’s State of the Union address was used by President Bush to push Health Savings Accounts (here’s the White House press release - can’t find a transcript yet). They are meant to be the backbone of a type of plan, often called “consumer-driven”, that tries to incent you to manage your own health care. The better-informed you are in your choices, you can keep the cost of your care down. Sounds like a good idea at first blush. However, Minnesota Public Radio just finished a series called Prescription for Change that looks at the state of healthcare and consumer-driven plans as well. The series highlights the potential benefits and drawbacks of this type of healthcare. It was interesting to listen to and makes a good read as well.
I highly recommend this series to help you understand the choices all of us will likely face over the coming years.
Comments(0) Two posts from others that are worth checking out:
Comments(2) This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Fat Pitch Financials. Unfortunately my submission wasn’t included, but lots of excellent articles have been. Check it out.
Comments(0) I’ve attached a spreadsheet answering the “advanced” example from yesterday. In the meantime, I also came across a post over at Kirby on Finance that fits nicely into the topic at hand.
Will shared the information he heard from someone on the radio. The calculations that Will recounted didn’t seem quite right, so I ran them to check their validity. See example #2 in the Excel file.
Learning simple Excel skills will go a long way to helping you plan your financial future. If you don’t have Excel and can’t justify paying for it, OpenOffice.org contains a free spreadsheet program that will essentially work the same. Only advanced Excel files that use Visual Basic for Applications programming won’t work in OpenOffice.
