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Why doesn't health care reform include the ability to keep group insurance rates through COBRA for longer than 18 months? We will exhaust our COBRA eligibility in a few months.  Our insurance cost will more than double even with a higher deductible and no dental insurance.  

posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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My daughter would have liked to adopt her foster child, but the complexities of international adoption when the parents live in another country is challenging even if the parents had agreed  to allow it. Since they did not, my daughter and her husband did not try. They may adopt her once she becomes an adult if that is what she wants then.

posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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Is there funding for these new requirements?

My daughter is the foster mother of a child from another country. The social worker here rarely checks on them. The child is a teen with a cell phone who could call the worker if needed, but it appears that there is not the money to do everything that is officially the law.  

posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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I remember when my son told me he signed up for a credit card. He was a 19 or 20 and college student. He said he had no intention of using it but got a free T-shirt for signing up. I was astounded that they would extend credit to someone with no obvious way to pay it back. As it turned out, he DID end up using the credit card and eventually defaulted on the payments.  Several years later he found he could not get a  normal loan for a car and eventually reached a settlement with the credit card company. Supposedly they discounted what he owed to get paid in one lump sum (he gave them his whole tax refund) but that amount almost surely was more than he had ever actually charged. He would have been much better off in building credit if he hadn't been lured into getting a card too soon.  

posted 2 years, 12 months ago
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Is there any chance of creating an early buy-in to Medicare? This could be a partial quick fix. My husband was recently laid off at 58. I am 60.We have "pre-existing conditions." It is likely in this economy that neither of us will be able to find a job with health care benefits. We have an income that we could probably live on from self employment if we didn't also have to cover the full cost of health care.

posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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Exactly how does the government offer insurance? Is the US going to guarantee that a loan won't default and pay the full value of the loan if it does? How much would this insurance cost? I'm sure the institutions who hold these loans and know much more about their quality would be able to figure out which loans to insure.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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Over and over we've been told the US can't possibly afford to set up a system to provide health care to all citizens, yet suddenly we can commit $700 Billion dollars to buy worthless securities and must,must do this by Friday. I don't buy it.

The original bill is a simple read. Anyone can see is a set up for one person, with no oversight, to spend a huge amount of our tax dollars helping his friends in the banking industry.

It is human nature to care more about the people you know best. Paulson knows plenty of Wall Street Bankers and probably no one without health insurance. He may sincerely believe what he is saying. That does not make the bail out the best solution for the American taxpayer. It is the job of congress to say "NO!"

We will probably slip into recession whether we do this or not. Spending a couple weeks coming up with a fair way to deal with this problem is not going to make that much difference. Get it right. Don't rush.

Nancy Nichols

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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Thirty years ago I traveled about 300 miles from the rural area where I lived to a large city where abortion was readily available. I was married with two children, one of whom was facing serious health problems. I'd been faithfully using mechanical birth during while breast feeding my younger child. I knew I could not handle either the pregnancy itself or do justice to my two existing children with another one.

I knew it was the right decision at the time and have never had any regrets.

I wish I had been able to get this procedure locally, but at least it was safe and legal.

Very few people know about this. It would be better if more women talked openly about having had abortions, but knowing that some folks will consider you a murderer leads to silence on the topic.

An additional problem I have not seen addressed is that medical forms for women ask how many abortions you have had. If you are honest everyone in that office knows and those who believe abortion is murder must see you as a monster. When I learned that my family care provider believed abortion was wrong, I wrestled with what to do about that. Eventually I transferred to another doctor. We never discussed this long past abortion but just knowing he felt that way created a communication barrier for me.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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The link doesn't work. Could you correct it?

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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Is there a map of all the claims under Measure 49 so I could look to see the status of claims in my neighborhood? 3 homes, 10 homes, a M37 commercial develpment? If there is a map or even a by county list, could you post a link?

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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1)In the small coastal valleys, some areas that were farms in the early 1900's are now forests. They have registered water rights that clearly are not being used. In some watersheds it would be useful for these early dated rights to become instream rights for fish. However the system for vacating a water right makes it expensive and bureaucratically difficult for the state to do it. Also, any notice of termination to the owner might well cause him to start using the water right again further depleting water needed for healthy salmon stocks. If there were some financial benefit for someone not using a water right to permanently give it up, more water rights would be relinquished voluntarily. I would not support this to give more water to lower ranked water rights, but to give the water to the fish.

2)There needs to be an incentive to use less water rather than a requirement that water be used regularly to keep a water right. Is anyone working on something like this?

Nancy

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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This might be a little hard to do on radio, but I have wondered for years what areas of the Willamette Valley would be covered if an earthquake lead to a dam break when the reservoirs along the Willamette were full. Folks in areas that would be flooded by tsunamis have a plan to get to higher ground, but Willamette valley residents (and Columbia valley residents?) don't have a clue where "high enough" ground might be if a couple dams broke. Why not?

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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This might sound boring but I'd really like to understand what has kept Oregon from increasing the gas tax so we can repair the streets we have. I'm amazed that Eugene is cutting their local tax because the "fair" way to do it is to have the same state wide gas tax. The streets in Eugene need major repairs as do the State highways in Lane County. The cost of getting my wheels realigned from hitting so many potholes is more than I'd pay if we had a 10 cent a gallon gas tax. Why can't we do something about roads? I'd vote for a county wide tax or a state wide tax as long as if was less than 10 cents a gallon. Something is keeping this off the table. What is it?

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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Yes, I agree. I do the same thing with TOTN and WHYS. I like to be able to ask a question of someone who might actually know the answer rather than hear just anyone throw out opinions.

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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PhillipJ's post make a lot of sense. How do we know what our ocean could be without fishing if we have no areas without fishing? At a minimum, it seems worth trying in a few spots. How can we do all the research so many have asked for without having a reserve?

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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I think your suggestion would actually increase foreclosures. If everyone had to be given exactly the same rate, then people with slightly bad credit would not be given loans so there would be fewer buyers. More people who need to sell would only have the option of walking away from their mortgage if they could not find a buyer.

Higher rates for weaker or simply unproven buyers makes sense. Higher reward (to the lender) for the higher risk of lending to a buyer who has a greater than average chance of being unable to pay back the loan.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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What actually happens if a home is foreclosed upon? I thought that an auction was held on the courthouse steps with the lender bidding the amount of the defaulted mortgage. Anyone who wanted to bid higher could. I always assumed any money from a higher bid went to the owner of the home. Is Chuck saying that the lender gets the money? What a lender gets when a home is resold is rarely a profit. The lender must pay for repairs, taxes, utilities and insurance during a time when the money is totally tied up with no interest received. No one is making out here.

You need the secondary market for loans to keep them available and affordable. Those loans are what fund our pension payments, insurance claims and many other financial activities. If banks had to permanently tie up money for 30 years they could make very few loans and rates would be a lot higher.

Do you know the date of the survey for why people default? My guess is that the percentages have changed somewhat in the last 6 months or so.

If lenders needed to accurately value a loan every time it changed hands, they would need to have information on the home (an physical appraisal) and the current financial status of the borrower. How would you like to have to file a new loan application and let someone come inspect your house any time someone asked for the whole life of the loan?

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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There are good reason to take a loan that might ultimately turn out to be a bad idea. What needs to happen is for everyone to learn in high school how to compare loans and when a non-standard loan might actually be in your best interest. A low teaser rate could be just the ticket for someone who knows they will be moving in a few years or that the family income will increase dramatically. Maybe a stay at home mom will be returning to work in 2 years so that even if the loan cannot be refinanced to a lower rate the higher payments could be managed. Buyers need to take responsibility. Brokers need to cover all possibilities with buyers so they can make intelligent choices, but the state should not mandate specific loans.

There should be a financial literacy requirement for a high school diploma. Understanding of how credit cards, car loans and mortgage loans work is essential.

For now, "the market" has solved the problem. When lenders anticipated increasing prices, getting a home back in a foreclosure was not a problem. With stable or decreasing prices, they will not be taking possession of an asset that has increased 30% in value so they just will not make risky (to them) loans.

Eventually the market will turn again. Perhaps by then a new generation of buyers will be better educated and will not select loans that are not in their own best interest.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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$144 sounds like a good deal. How old are you? Do you have any pre-existing conditions? Is there a cap on the amount this insurance will pay? Does it pay 100% after the $1000 deductible or do you continue to have co-pays? I found a plan that I thought was a good deal until I learned that the maximum for a lifetime was $20,000. What if I got cancer or needed a kidney transplant? $20,000 would barely get me started. Another one sounded possibly OK but, in addition to a high initial deductible, you had a 20% cop-pay after reaching that deductible.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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I turned in late so didn't hear the whole show. Did you cover how much might come from federal lands if the feds just paid normal property taxes and standard severance tax when they cut trees? I suspect that the payments to counties have been more than what ordinary taxes would be, but I never hear anything about that.

It is my understanding that the share of revenues given to counties varied a lot depending on the program. If we simply returned to the old system, O & C lands pay a bigger share than National Forests. I believe harvests under Stewardship Contracts do not pay anything at all. Was this covered in the show? I've been interested in understanding the whole system. Your show came closer than any I've heard. Thanks for doing it. Sorry I didn't get to hear the whole show.

With fewer log trucks on the roads from National Forest operations, it makes sense for the feds to pay less to the counties. Those of us using services need to to pick up more of our own costs. I hope we can find a fair way through this.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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