Simplee.com Helps Manage Your Health Care Expenses

If your financially able to pay for health care, managing and understanding it is a difficult task. When you go to the doctor you may not be sure how much the doctor will charge, how much your insurance coverage will pay, and if your deductible is met yet. Juggling and keeping up with all these factors of your health care plan is a lot a work. Even if you wait till your explanation of benefits letter arrives in the mail , it can be still very confusing. You need an easy way to keep track of all these numbers.

Today we have Simplee.com to help. Simplee.com is an online personal health care management website. It's the Mint.com for health care. The way Simplee works is you simply let Simplee link to your health care providers website and it accesses the data and then it presents it to you in a simple and manageable way. The website will show you how much you were billed for a procedure, how much the insurance company will pay and what you are expected to pay. You don't have to enter any information because you allow the Simplee website to use your log on information for the health care providers website and Simplee just accesses the information itself.

You can use the information for multiple accounts and family members. It will keep track of your deductibles and even let you know what services your policy covers.


Simplee lets you drill down to individual claims to see what your insurance paid, the negotiated discount, and what you owe. It’s like a statement of benefits that actually makes sense. 

Simplee currently supports eight of the largest health plans in the U.S (including Aetna, United Healthcare, Cigna, Empire BlueCross BlueShield, and BlueCross BlueShield of California), and is adding more every week.

Why America Is Exceptional - Fourth of July

Image via WikipediaAsk yourself how it's possible, a group of men could sign a document 235 years ago, resulting in a country that eventually would dominate a world culturally, economically, societally, and militarily. Even though other nations had a 1000 year head start and they still couldn't attain the same result.

Is America exceptional or as President Obama stated in April 2009, "America was not any more exceptional than any other country."

The beginning of American exceptionalism started with the revolution. The founders wanted to write a Constitution that would not fail man as past documents have. They believed the rule of law was the basic foundation of a people who's success or failure depended on their own efforts. They believed government could not guarantee or provide anyones basic needs. They started with the premise that all men were created equal. This gave all men an even starting point in their lives. It would be up to them to make it work. It was the being of the American tradition of self reliance.

The founders new then that government was not the solution but the problem. Even today men still think government can cure all of the people problems. The founders knew that government needed to get out of the way of it's citizens because the people had it with in them to make their lives work. Anything the government touched would not be as efficient as men and women taking care of their own lives. Governments job was not help all citizens succeed, it was supposed to make the playing field level, giving all the opportunity to succeed, not guaranteeing success.

No government is like America. Most revolutions seek to destroy the existing class order and use all-powerful government to mandate an equality of result rather than of opportunity. The Founders were convinced that constitutionally protected freedom would allow the individual to create wealth apart from government. Such enlightened self-interest would then enrich society at large far more effectively that could an all-powerful state.

In America we trust in the common man, not the government. In other lands, the government is the nanny of the people. There is an innate distrust in the government and the elite bureaucracy it creates. Confidence in the common man is the backbone of our success in the past and the only way to a prosperous future.

6 Signs That Indicate Your Headed For A Financial Collision

Image via WikipediaGetting into trouble financially doesn't happen all of a sudden. It happens little by little. Dollar by dollar you increase the amount you owe on your credit cards. An emergency comes along and your savings doesn't cover the bill. You use your credit card like a piggy bank. You don't mean for it to happen but you are forced into a corner.

Being aware of the warning signs of trouble may help you avoid the trouble so here are 6 indicators that you may be on your way to financial ruin.

1. Using your home as a source of money. One of the causes of the financial crisis was homeowners borrowing on the equity in their home. They used the money for consumables like TVs, cars and vacations. Some used their home to pay off credit card and other debt. Doing this takes short term debt and makes it long term debt. It is like borrowing money for a car and taking 30 years to pay it of. If you are about to do this, find another way to borrow the money for your debts. Try negotiating a lower interest rate with your credit card company.

2. Using or borrowing from retirement accounts. If you borrowed from you 401(k) this is a sign of future financial problems. Most people use this as a last resort and it shows that you are having trouble with cash flow. It is only a patch on a problem. Doing this just exposes the serious financial problem you have. Using your retirement savings sets up future tax problems, you have to pay the loan back if you lose your job, and you lose the compounding that makes retirement savings grow. A better way would be to cut back in lifestyle and sell everything that's not nailed down.

3. Your paying overdraft fees and getting Non-sufficient funds notices from your bank. Another sign you are living on the financial edge and ready to go over. This is a big red flag that you have too little income and to many debts to pay. Your monthly bills are more than you make and just one more emergency and you will be underwater. Now is the time to seek professional credit counseling.

4. Fighting with your spouse about money. Nothing can end a relationship faster than money problems. An occasional fight now and then is fine but if you are having continual, never ending fights you are showing all the signs of an impending financial disaster. It's time to get to a marriage and financial counselor.

5. Credit Card Roulette. If you are juggling several credit card balance transfer offers and just moving balances from one to another card, this is a sign of impending financial trouble. You are not paying down your debts and you may be just increasing them. Here again a drastic reduction in lifestyle is the answer. You spending more than you make and it will never end unless you do something drastic and change your behaviors.

6. Paying late fees and juggling due dates. Timing your bills due dates shows you just don't have the money for what your spending money on. It's very hard to time your bills due dates. You may get some bills there on time but others like credit card companies sometimes hold back your payments and credit your account after due dates just to churn late fees. Late fees also trigger interest rate increases, just making the your minimum payments even higher.

If your tired of living with these kinds of behaviors and never having enough money to pay your bills maybe your sick and tired enough to do something about it today.

Goodby ING Direct, Hello Perkstreet Financial

Image via CrunchBaseLike a lot of ING Direct customers I am very disappointed in the decision to sell the company to Capital One. Capital One is acquiring one of the finest banking companies on the web. I believe that Capital One will not keep the fine customer service and great fee structure that ING Direct delivered for so many years. It may be premature to abandon ship at so early a time but am not going to wait around and see what happens.

Without ING what are my alternatives. I need a bank with free checking and a free ATM. The ATM card must also let me use it for making charges. It also has to have a reward program.

The only bank that suits all those requirements is PerkStreet Financial. I have been using PerkStreet  Financial for a while and have found that it lives up to its claims.

What I like about PerkStreet is they have a 2% unlimited cash rebate on purchases for your first 3 months (and longer, if you maintain more than a $5,000 balance). If you keep less than $5,000 on hand, they will still give you 1% cash back after the initial offering.

The rest of the year they offer 5% (with a $250 annual limit) on various categories and retailers. Not bad for a checking account.

I also use the Chase Amazon Card which gives me 1% back on purchases and 3% when used at Amazon. Now I use the PerkStreet Debit MasterCard for more and more bill payments so I can add to my reward total.

I don't have direct deposit, so I use my other bank to transfer the cash to PerkStreet, all at no charge. I like to pay my utilities and repeating monthly bills through PerkStreet to also add to my cash back total.

It's very easy to apply for an account online and you can fund your account through your current bank account. You can sign up for an account today with the details below.


Improve your financial life with the PerkStreet Financial^SM Debit MasterCard®. Save money, have fun and stay on budget with the only unlimited 2% cash back debit card. Don't miss out. Sign up today.