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Today's topics are "Best Of Clark" repeats from recent shows

50 million Americans have no health insurance and are getting price-gouged by hospitals. One of the medical journals did a study that compares the prices for service paid by the insured vs. the uninsured. Those with coverage might get a bill that's $5,000 for a certain service. Typically they'll also have 20 percent co-pay, so that's an additional $1,000, for a combined $6,000 price tag. However, if you don't have coverage you will be billed $12,500 for the same procedure -- that's more than twice the price! What happens is that the big insurance companies cut deals with hospitals to reduce the amount they have to pay. Then they pass some of those saving on to their customers. But people without insurance don't have the same negotiating power and get stuck with the bill that's twice as large.

It's nuts that our system is upside down and backwards, especially if the goal is to move toward consumer-driven healthcare based on quality of service and price. Clark thinks there's no excuse not to have price lists at your medical provider. Medicine suffers from lack of financial transparency -- you can't comparison shop because you don’t know the price of any of the services you're going to receive. One insurance company is tackling this problem by ranking hospitals and doctors with green, yellow and red colors to tell you how much out-of-pocket expense you'll have. But we really need to be able to shop for medical care by price. Medical care accounts for 15 percent of our total national wealth each year. Of course, people are getting better health care, but Clark still has the feeling that we're squandering that 15 percent. After all, we spend more on health costs per person than any other country, yet we have shorter life-spans and are not as healthy as citizens in other nations. We're spending so much, but getting so little back. The reason is because medicine is largely not run like a business; Dentistry and Lasik eye surgery are two areas of the medical profession that are run like a business. The experiences in those offices are great because the services are driven by modern technology and the marketplace sets the price. They're great with customer service too, providing prompt appointments because they have to compete in a real marketplace.

Battery powered bikes are all the rage and they're great for commuters who want to save money. As some of you listeners may know, Clark often rides a scooter to the studio. He gets more than 70 miles to the gallon and goes around 45 miles per hour. But the scooter still runs on regular gas, which can be expensive. By comparison, electric bikes go 20 miles per hour and they retail for around $700-$800 and up. They're very silent, except for the whirring of the electric motor, and go 30-40 miles between charges. They're nearly pollution free, but you are exposed to the elements. Still, they save a ton of money and are a viable option if you have a commute that's less than 10 miles. Clark admits that the electric bike trumps his scooter for savings. On a related note, Clark wants to warn his listeners that gas-additive scams are back full force. These scams involve people trying to sell you pills and potions for your fuel tank that promise to stretch your gas by 30 percent. The claims are bogus. It is only natural that as we pay more for gas we want to believe there's a way to recoup the extra expenditure. But don't make the bad situation of paying for more expensive gas worse by losing money on these gas-additive ploys.

Check washing is still alive and well. Clark never writes checks anymore because of the dangers inherent in doing so, but he knows that many people still do. Check washing gives criminals a very low-tech way to steal money. It involves using a solvent to erase the payee info on the check and change it, along with the dollar amount. So Clark advises people not to put their bill payments in their home mailbox and raise the flag on that mailbox. That's a signal to criminals to come around for some easy pickings. Instead, you should drop your bills paid by check in a secured mailbox, whether it's a locked box or a USPS drop box. Another way to avoid having your checks washed is to use a pen with wash-proof ink. These kinds of pens are available at most office supply stores.

Businesses are at an even greater risk than individuals when it comes to check washing. That's because they usually have more cash in an account than an individual. Additionally, business accounts are subject to more stringent requirements. For example, if there's a break-in at your business and your checks are stolen by a thief, you can be held responsible for part or all of the losses you may incur through check washing. That's why all businesses need a locked cabinet or a safe to store their checks. Likewise, if you use computer-run checks and you leave blanks in the laser print, you're fully exposed to liability. So if you're a business owner, you must lock up your checks securely at night. One more caveat: a dishonest employee can do the same damage to you as an external thief if they get hold of your business checks. So protect yourself from internal threats, as well as external ones.

Clark is fond of saying, "All real estate is local." That means that home values are stable in some places around the country, while in other areas they're down the toilet. Speculative markets where people bought with no money down, had adjustable loans or option payment loans have really been hurt. The option payment loans -- which are big in California -- are loans where the balance rises over time. The only way not to get clobbered is if the home value rises quicker than the loan balance, which is usually not the case. So option payments lead to a lot of foreclosures -- unless you can arrange a short sale with the mortgage lender. In the case of a short sale, the lender agrees to accept less than the loan balance if you can get the place sold. Why would a lender want to do this? Well, it turns out that it costs a lender $70,000 on average to foreclose on one home, according to industry estimates!!! So a short sale is something of a win/win situation for lender and borrower alike. The neighborhood also wins in this situation because for every house foreclosed on, the average selling price of other homes in the immediate area drops 1.5 percent. Foreclosure is like a cancer that spreads in a neighborhood, but it can be healed with prevention by contacting your lender and setting up a short sale to actively market the property before the fact. An answer of "no" today may be "yes" tomorrow, as the lender may have to first get a waiver from someone they sold the loan to in order to permit that short sale.

Meanwhile, a Zip Realty survey has found that listings around the country are up significantly. This means trouble if there aren't enough buyers around. In fact, the average home value will drop between 1.5 and 2 percent this year around the nation. Of course, it's bound to be worse in the bubble markets like the Miami condo market, parts of Phoenix, Southwest Florida and elsewhere. One thing to keep in mind is that if you're not actively moving or selling, none of this matters to you. You don't have a big issue unless you're selling, and then you're selling into weakness. If you're staying put, you're fine.

Blogs have made such a difference in what we do every day. Take the site tripadvisor.com, which allows people to rate hotels based on their stay there. Clark loves to check this site before he stays anywhere because it's such a good blogging resource. And no one blogs more these days than our military personnel. They talk about all kinds of issues and topics on blog sites. But the military powers that be aren't too happy with this new trend and are putting the kibosh on it. Soldiers can't blog or send personal e-mail messages without having them reviewed by a superior officer. If they fail to go through that process, they can be taken to court. What Clark wants to explain is that people give up certain freedoms –- including due process –- when they enter the U.S. military. We'll keep you posted on what happens.

If you own a business or work for a big company and you treat customers poorly, you may soon be a victim of technology. From YouTube to all of the blogging sites out there, consumers now have a way to fight back through the Internet. It's like electronic picketing. Take, for instance, the man who videotaped the Comcast worker who fell asleep on his couch. That video went all over the world and Comcast took a huge hit because of it. So, just remember that you have power -- even though you may not realize it when you're dealing with these giant faceless companies and a government that doesn't care.