The year long fight over whether to pass a bill reforming the healthcare industry has just come to an end. President Obama has signed it into law. Now all we have to do is sit back and wait to see whether it will deliver a better and fairer service to more of the population. At this point, a little honesty is in order. The US healthcare service has been broken for some time and anything that improves it is to be welcomed. The GOP do, however, have legitimate concerns about cost. We are just starting to recover from a deep recession. Unemployment is still at a record high. Public debt is mounting as big government tries to keep the banks afloat and encourage business to start hiring again. So, if this reform pushes up debt, the cost may come to outweigh the benefits. The various supposedly independent government agencies claim the reforms will actually reduce public debt. Unfortunately, guessing what will happen in the future never produces reliable results. All we can do is wait and see.

One of the key selling points for reform has been the number of people without insurance. The Democrats have been standing up for social justice – the idea that the state should provide health care for the maximum number of people. Various numbers have been thrown around. There are apparently some 45 million uninsured adults. About 31 or 32 million of these people may now get some kind of coverage. Where do all these numbers come from and how reliable are they? We start of with the census. That is supposed to tell us how many people there are in the US so the government can make sensible plans to provide all the services and amenities they need. Unfortunately, the census data is now old and not completely reliable. Not everyone wants to be counted or, if cornered, not everyone tells the truth. But it does give us a starting point. We exclude children and seniors already in Medicare. This is the number of adults who could have health plans. The insurance companies report the number of policy holders and of those enrolled in employers’ plans. A subtraction sum gives us an estimate of the uninsured. So who will be entitled to coverage? Well, big government is expecting some 24 million people to buy coverage through the new insurance exchanges. A further 16 million are expected to join Medicaid. More children whose parents do not qualify for aid will join CHIP. Except no one actually knows for certain who these people are. The only clear cut assurance that has been given is to ensure illegal adult immigrants will not be allowed into the health market.

Put simply, none of the numbers you see in the news media can really be explained or justified. Everyone who wants access to affordable health insurance coverage will just have to stand up and agree to be counted. If they meet the criteria on income and do not have insurance provided by their employer, they are potentially eligible for assistance. If the healthcare costs can be controlled, more people will no doubt be brought into cheap health insurance plans. It will still be short of universal coverage but, in a capitalist country, we do not want anything so socialist. There must always be losers so the rest of us count as winners.

As you get older, the mortgage is paid off and the kids have grown up and left the nest, there’s a temptation to switch off. You feel you have done all the heavy lifting. The pension will be coming soon when you retire… What’s wrong with this picture? Well, the majority of people were trading in property and, when the bubble burst, they are looking at negative housing equity and the threat of foreclosure. Even those who stayed in their own homes over the years, often borrowed heavily against them. With the recession, all those investments in the retirement fund have lost their shine. Unemployment is a more real threat to middle and upper class families. Children seem to be staying in the family home for longer. And all this at a time when life expectancy is increasing. Ten years ago, people might have dropped their term life insurance policies and found themselves with more disposable income. Now the decision is more difficult.

With the credit crunch, the pressure is on to keep paying the mortgage, reduce the outstanding household debts and put food on the table. Those of you with permanent or cash-value life insurance policies have a slightly easier path to follow. Premiums will be fixed but, if you stop paying, the policies may remain valid. The decisions are to:

• keep paying, which builds up the investment value and protects the family by maintaining the death benefit;
• stop paying and leave the cash value untouched;
• withdraw or borrow some of the cash value; or
• cancel the policy which usually involves a big tax bill.

If a term life insurance policy is falling due for renewal, here’s how the choice looks: if you renew, the premiums will be higher because, suddenly, you’re older; but, if you let the policy expire, your family could be hit hard if you die unexpectedly. Many of you may have bought term life cover when you were younger. Perhaps you thought you would convert to permanent policies or simply drop the cover when your children had grown up. Now that retirement funds are shrinking, it’s time to take another look at term insurance.

Allowing for inflation, the premiums have actually been falling over the last ten years as life expectancy has been improving. Go back fifty years and only a small percentage of people lived beyond seventy. Now, many people live into their eighties and beyond. This has prompted competition among companies who offer cheap life insurance to attract business from older people. As long as you are physically fit, you are likely to find the rates little changed from the ten, fifteen or twenty year term policy that is due to expire. Naturally, there will be a health exam to ensure you will live a reasonable number of years before a claim arises, but the option to continue a term policy or to convert to a permanent policy are better than you might imagine. This is a good time to start talking to the life insurance companies to see what your options are.