GOURI MUKHERJEE, BROOKLYN, N.Y.
Citibank’s Connie Kain now says that Murphy herself was (sob) mistaken when she told you the ATM was wrong. Checking back, Kain says, the bank found that its source for the price quotes was right, and therefore presumes that the ATM must have been right, too. There’s no explanation for why Citi’s phone reps would have confirmed a different price–namely, the higher price you were trying to get. As Kain sees it, you overpriced your stock based on no evidence at all. You could try arbitration. Lots of luck.
QUESTION: I am trying to obtain affordable health insurance for my husband, Dennis, 56. We’re both retired. He had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1982 and again in 1986, which was covered by insurance we’d bought through our business. Since 1987 he has been cancer free. His current, individual policy through PFL Life, however, pays only for outpatient hospital care, and the price just rose from about $4,000 to $7,000 annually. That’s prohibitive. But other policies won’t insure him for any cancer-related bills at all.
BEVERLY KENDALL, HENDERSONVILLE, N.C.
NEWSWEEK tried several agents who scout coverage for the hard-to-insure, but without success. Thomas Richman of Creative Benefit Plans in Cranbury, N.J., suggests calling HMOs. The majority accept only employee groups, but many take individuals and may cover pre-existing conditions. Or try the social-services departments of local hospitals. Hospitals sometimes have managed-care programs with liberal rules.
On July 1 a federal law took effect that’s supposed to save other people from the dread you face. Workers who lose their group insurance will now have a right to a similar policy somewhere else, regardless of health. But for anyone who has stood in your shoes, this new ““right’’ is a laugh, in many states. Yes, people can go from group to individual coverage, guaranteed. But insurers can deliberately price those ““guaranteed’’ policies out of reach.
QUESTION: I’m wondering whether I qualify for the new Roth IRA, which will accumulate money tax free. I’m retired with a pension, so have no earnings of my own. But my wife earns about $6,000 a year. Can she set up a Roth for me?
ALFRED PARRINELLO, GAINESVILLE, FLA.
Financial planner James Shambo of Lifetime Planning Concepts in Colorado Springs makes the following smart suggestion: don’t wait until 1998. Contribute $4,000 to two tax-deductible IRAs for 1997. Next year switch that money into two Roths (conversions are allowed for people with incomes under $100,000). You’ll owe income taxes on the switch but can stretch out the payments over the next four years. Conversions generally make sense, as long as you switch every dime from your old IRA into the Roth, paying the tax out of other funds. But you probably shouldn’t convert if you’ll have to withdraw some IRA money to pay the tax.
QUESTION: I’m a married active-duty army officer, 28. We anticipate moving every three or four years for the next 15 years or so. Should we buy a house to build equity for the day we settle down? Or should we plug away at mutual funds and stocks, and use those funds to buy a house when we retire from the military?
RICH PRIOR, AUGUSTA, GA.
Financial planner John Allen of Allen-Warren in Arvada, Colo., thinks your best bet is to rent at the lowest comfortable level and squirrel away as much as you can into mutual funds. He’d pick funds of moderate risk for your future-home purchase–say, growth-and-income funds. Keep this money separate from other retirement funds, which might be invested more aggressively.
Send your questions to Jane Bryant Quinn, NEWSWEEK Focus: On Your Money, 251 West 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10019. Letters can be answered only in the column.
