IRS.gov -- Download Form 9465 and file for a repayment plan

Today's show featured "Best Of Clark" repeats from recent shows

This Christmas season will be another banner year for gift cards. If you're a longtime listener, you know that Clark doesn't like gift cards -- unless you get more value than you pay for or you get extra free services when you buy one. The main reason he objects to gift cards is because they can become useless if the business where you bought them goes bust -- especially if you're talking about an independently owned shop, and not a chain store. Fortune magazine recently reported that many businesses are upset that states have passed laws to eliminate expiration dates on gift cards. That means there's one less way they can rip you off. Clark knows that he can't stop people from gift-card buying, but he wants his listeners to know that you can get burned on these purchases. Clark instead suggests giving cash if you don't know what to buy somebody or getting a greeting card and writing a personal message from the heart.

Clark recently read a story in The Wall Street Journal -- a paper he loves so much that his executive producer Christa calls it his "girlfriend" -- that reinforced a longstanding belief he's had about healthcare. About 2 years ago, the Netherlands privatized its healthcare system. Their government has decreed that everyone has to buy health insurance themselves and that employers are not allowed to provide it. The insurance companies must offer it to everyone regardless of their medical history. Those who can't afford the premiums receive subsidies to help out. So now the Dutch -- who are some of the world's tallest and healthiest people -- have a flourishing private healthcare market. So far the results have been very positive. Healthcare costs have declined significantly since the switch. When you put the consumer in charge, it changes the equation. Clark acknowledges that this experiment is still in its earliest days and that some problems may emerge down the road. But the insurers in our country are constantly alienating the consumer and pushing us closer to socialized medicine, which Clark thinks will be a terrible thing if we ever get there. Will the Dutch model ever gain traction here? Republican presidential hopeful/former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has already gotten heat over his adoption of some principles similar to what they're doing in the Netherlands. Only time will tell…

Restaurants often put healthy selections on the menu and then report that no one orders them. People claim they want healthy food, but what they say and what they order are 2 different things. Think about the frozen yogurt craze. People took what should be a low-fat healthy meal and then piled on hot fudge, nuts and syrups to make it fattening! But now there's a New England-based supermarket chain that may be proving people really do buy healthy things.

The Hannaford Bros. chain has launched a new nutrition-labeling program that aims to help make healthy shopping easy. The New York Times reports that Hannaford has gone through some 20,000 food items in its stores and labeled each of them with 0 to 3 stars. Foods with 0 stars are processed, fatty and sugary. Foods with 3 stars are things like vegetables, lean meats, beans and whole grain items. Sales of items with multiple stars have skyrocketed while those with 0 stars have plummeted. Clark loves that people have access to easy-to-understand information for making better choices -- even if he still would prefer to eat foods from the 0 stars group! But to his credit, Clark has gone from eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream nearly 365 days/year to about 25 days/year. He credits his doctor with helping him cut back. In fact, cutting back is the key; if he just went cold turkey, he'd probably relapse. And for those of you wondering about Clark's favorite flavor, it's Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge!

There are changes coming to the way credit scores are calculated that could affect millions of women. For many years, people have been allowed to share their credit cards with authorized users. Husbands historically have done this for their spouses. But then some criminals figured out how to take the whole authorized user thing one step further -- they actually generate inflated credit scores for risky candidates by renting out someone's good credit. Think about it in the following way. Let's say Clark has terrible credit and his executive producer Christa has great credit. A third party operator can charge Clark $1,000 to rent Christa's status. Christa will receive $500, the operator will keep the other $500 and Clark gets a bogus good credit score in his name. The problem is that the renters -- Clark in this example -- have been defaulting at huge rates. So now the credit bureaus are just eliminating all authorized user credit standing across the board.

Women (or men) who have been married for many years and have always used their spouse's credit cards in lieu of building their own credit will be most affected by this change. They'll go from having great credit to 0 credit overnight. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that there are more than 3 million women who have no credit standing of their own. Clark sometimes gets calls from new widows who suddenly have to deal with all the finances after a husband's death. He advises all women to have credit of their own. If you don't already have 2 credit cards in your name, now is the time to get them.