I've waded into the "debate" about the Senate health insurance reform bill and have been going back and forth about its potential effectiveness. I won't fool myself into believing we can get anything better with the current crop of obstructionist republicans in the Senate, especially when you put them beside the conservadems we are cursed with.
But, as I opened our mail today, I opened a few "change in agreement" notices from a couple of credit card companies. And it brought me back to the fairly vehement "debate" on this site while the credit card protection act was being discussed here.
There was all the passion we have with the health insurance reform debate (HIR), and there were all the calls that the bill wasn't good enough, didn't do enough, won't really help people, etc. And, there were comments that the banks would find ways around the legislation. That has come true to a certain degree, as many credit card companies have gone to variable rates and will be sitting fat and happy when Bernanke has to raise rates soon. I was one of the people who thought the bill didn't go far enough. I still am to a certain extent, but have calmed a bit.
I read through the changes that came in the mail. There is still a lot of legalese, the font is just a little bigger. But - it's going to help a lot of people.
First change that will save us, the little guys, some late payment fees is the due date. It will be the same date every month. No more missing the due date by one day because the bill was due on the 29th last month, but is due on the 28th this month.
The next change? No more automatic default rate for being a day late with a payment. The bloodsucking banks can't raise your rate until you are 60 days past due on a minimum payment. That's 2 months, people. You still get whacked with the late payment fee, but no more automatic default rate.
Tied into the above change.....if you do get your rate raised for being 2 months late, you can get the lower rate back by paying the minimum on time for 6 months. So, you're not stuck with the 30% default rate forever.
We now get 45 days notice before a rate increase. That's a lot better than opening a statement and wondering why the hell your minimum payment is $100 more than it used to be. As far as I can tell, opt out is available if you don't accept the new terms.
And, the last one, the one will help the largest number of people (IMO): everything over your minimum due will go to higher rate balances. If your minimum payment is $100 and you send in $150, the $50 goes to the highest rate balance.
Until I was able to go back to work after our youngest child was born 3 months early, we relied on credit cards for things, most prominently, my son's reflux medication (only available at a compounding pharmacy) and the supplies for his trach tube and g-tube cleaning. It added up fast and one late payment put us at the default rate of 29%. We could barely pay the minimum on that card because I was not working...our son required 24/7 care. At the time, sleep-deprived and worried out of our minds, I didn't read the fine print in the credit card agreement and when a balance transfer offer for 0% until the balance was paid off came in, we took and transferred the balance from our other credit card. As you can imagine, the transferred balance shrunk pretty fast, but the other balance, growing at 29% with no payment made to it, grew exponentially to the point where it was just unmanageable.
Many people find themselves in that position today. And this one change will help them all.
The credit card bill wasn't all it could be. People on this website were screaming that we were better off doing nothing. After seeing what was actually forced on the lenders, I have to disagree.
Improvements still need to be made in regulation of that industry, but the changes are going to make a difference for a lot of people.
After seeing this, I think the HIR bill will be the same way. The bill we are currently "discussing" won't help everyone, but it will help a lot of people....more than I think many here realize. When we ran the numbers, it looks like my family will be eligible for subsidies. I was floored. We don't qualify for even reduced lunch at school, but we would get help with our insurance. That is mind-blowing to me.
We have alway had insurance, no matter what we had to sacrifice to have it. And, my husband stayed at a crappy job for 2 years in order to keep the insurance for our son until he was out of the woods. That job took a toll on my husband and our family....long hours, mediocre pay, shitty co-workers and management, but he could not leave because we needed that insurance. The total for our son's care was over one million dollars. Our share came to $47,000, after some negotiation with the insurance company (negotiation is such a nice word....I threatened to cut off some balls ;-).
Despite all of the short-comings of the current Senate bill, it will help a lot of people. It is not everything everyone wants, not by a long shot. But many here felt the same way about the credit card laws too. The banks fought that bill tooth and nail too. And now we sit at the door to its enactment and can see just what it does do. It's not going to completely alleviate the debt problem, but it's going to give a whole lot more people a chance at digging out of their hole. My husband and I joked around when I finally was able to go back to work that we went from digging at our debt with a teaspoon, then moved to a tablespoon and we're up to a serving spoon now. Our original payments to the hospital were $25 a month. The despair you feel when you see a $47,000 balance and know you are whacking away at it in $25 increments is indescribeable.
I guess I just wanted to put this out there so people can see that perfect really shouldn't be the enemy of the good. Despite the calls that were made to Congress to not pass the credit card bill because it didn't go far enough, the bill passed and a lot of good will come from it.