← The Clark Howard Podcast
The Clark Howard Podcast
07-20-2026 WFH Is Reshaping Employment / Health Insurance Costs
00:35:33
Brutal Reality of Remote Work & Hidden Trap in Your Health Insurance
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- [00:01]
Sponsor/Announcer
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- [01:05]
Clark Howard
It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. Today, remote work is in a transition. During COVID you know, everything went so much remote. Then it went blended. Now there's back with this mix, this hybrid kind of some jobs you got to come in all the time, others you don't. Others are certain days of the week. But do you know that that could be hurting your career? The more you're out versus in the office and later there are new changes coming with health coverage that you need to know about. And I also have one more reason for you to avoid Medicare disadvantage plans. That's not really what they're called. So layoffs have been like the end thing over the last many months in corporate America. Big publicly traded companies and if they want to goose their stock, they announce layoffs that always seem to play well on Wall Street. Privately held companies, small businesses, they don't play these games. They hire as they need. If conditions get tough, they lay off when they feel like they have to. And it's pretty much a reasonable process, a logical process at non publicly traded companies. But publicly traded companies trying to get the stock going the direction they want will from time to time announce these series of layoffs because the number crunchers on Wall street love it. And so it's one of the weirdest phenomena that when a big corporation says we're going to lay off 18,000 people, it gets a lot of coverage. Not just in the financial press, it gets coverage in the general media as well, because it's a shock kind of number when a big company announces layoffs that are beyond 10,000 people. And those are actual real people with bills to pay, possibly families to support. And they're just pawns in a Wall street game. And who did the pawns end up being? All right, so let's say regional manager calls together the various subordinates that manage different functions and says, okay, we've got to lay off X number of people in our region. And so this is how I'm allocating it. You got to do these many and you got to do that many and you got to lay off this many other people. So this is where human nature enters into the mix. Out of sight, out of mind. If someone is working entirely remotely, oh man, you got a target on you. If somebody's working blended, little less of a target. If somebody's in the office every day or in the facility or factory or whatever it is. If they're somebody who the manager sees day to day and they've established some kind of emotional connection to, much less likely to face a layoff. A lot of people for very key personal reasons want to be able to work as much as they can away from the office, but where you get hurt. And I address another aspect of this months ago, that when it's time for promotions, people that are present in an office just because of human nature, people that are present are more likely to get a promotion and maybe a better raise than people who are just known through a zoom or Google Meets or something like that. That the way humanity works. And if you think it through from this standpoint, you got to always understand what you gain versus what you might lose. Obvious benefits, not having to commute in traffic, being able to work from where you live instead of commute somewhere. And those are day to day benefits. But in terms of pay over time and stability of your job, the more you are there and build connections with fellow employees, supervisors, managers. And remember this, if you're in there for the long haul, people who are your colleagues, different people are going to get promoted quicker than others and all that. And someone who you've established a relationship with even early in their career, and your career can end up being a benefit later. Those kind of connections are not established when everything is remote. So I know there are benefits. Think about how nice it was. It was the upside of the downside of COVID the reduction in traffic for people who did not do jobs that they had to travel to. Wow, that was pleasant. But now we're in this awkward let's call it teen years of hybrid type work functions. And there are consequences that are becoming more clear from it.
- [06:53]
Claire
Also younger people. My daughter is new to the workforce. She has a job where she's in five days a week and she loves that. She has friends who work remotely and it's really hard for them socially because you're sort of isolated and you know they'll go to public places to work. But it can be really tough, particularly I think early in a career.
- [07:12]
Clark Howard
Well, talking about people who come out of high school, trade school, college and go into the workforce and go remote, there's so much that is not obvious to you as a new person in corporate America that if you're not in a facility like Claire is five days a week, there's actual real harm to understanding the flow and how things work and all that. I read a story recently and I'm trying to remember. It was in one of the financial publications about how people had always worked remotely out of school. And then they get their first job where they have to go in person. How they are clueless about how to dress. Oh yeah, the office and that. Picking up nonverbal clues like that, like what is typical property attire. And it varies by company. But you got to know what that culture is and be in tune with that when you are going in person. So you miss a lot if right from the get go you're working only remotely.
- [08:26]
Claire
Sure. Like water cooler talk is really important. Observing other people or managers and how they're handling things just there's so much I learned early in my career and I continue to learn when I'm in the office. So. Okay, we're going to go to questions now. Jim in Wisconsin says, I received an email from a local Wisconsin community bank promoting a free service called Property Fraud Alert. And they give the website, it monitors the county recorder's office and alerts you if someone fraudulently records a document on your property. Is this a legitimate service worth signing up for?
- [08:58]
Clark Howard
It absolutely is. You know, title fraud is rare, but it's beyond ugly when it happens to you. And let me tell you something about this. This to me feels like the early stages of another site that we've talked about for years and years. Missingmoney.com which started off in a small number of states and eventually became very widely spread. So Property Fraud Alert is in, let me see. It looks like it's in about 15, 17 states right now. And it's such a good idea because a lot of counties now have registries, but people in busy Lives and not even knowing what, what title theft is. So where somebody takes out a loan on a fully paid off home without you knowing, pretending to be you, or they even sell your home out from under you create, you know, with false identity and suddenly you were homeless, you were evicted from your home. So with a title alert service from your county or if your state's on property fraud alert, you will be notified when any funny stuff is going on with your title, hopefully in time to shut it down. So I love this.
- [10:27]
Claire
Okay, do we want to give the website.
- [10:29]
Clark Howard
Yeah, I thought I did.property fraud alert.com.
- [10:32]
Claire
right. And is it free to everyone even if it like doesn't come through?
- [10:35]
Clark Howard
As best I can tell, it is free. But there are paid services for this. But just like with missing money, what the reason we gravitated to missing money was. It was.
- [10:46]
Claire
Right, exactly. So don't be fooled because you're going to hear their ads all over the place for title fraud alert companies and stuff.
- [10:53]
Clark Howard
So they're charging you crazy amounts of money because again, even though the crime is brutal, it is so rare. And the information, the databases should be publicly available and easily accessed. And that seems to be the idea behind this.
- [11:09]
Claire
And then just to add one more thing, I think I've heard you recommend a lot to. You could register with your county as well. Right, right.
- [11:16]
Clark Howard
But that's the step that people don't get to.
- [11:19]
Claire
Right.
- [11:20]
Clark Howard
And so that's why I like it if there's an easy process, easy button. But again, not enough states. But just like missing money started, you know, just here and then another and then another. And now is almost all the states in the country. I had somebody who watched a TikTok of me talking about missing money and I walked in to get a haircut yesterday and he came up and he said, by the way, you like my haircut?
- [11:49]
Claire
Looks great.
- [11:50]
Clark Howard
Thank you, Lane actually like this one because I said, please do not cut it short.
- [11:55]
Claire
Right.
- [11:56]
Clark Howard
Or my wife's going to kill me and come find you and kill you too. Because if she had her way, I would have shoulder length hair. Would I look ridiculous for shoulder length there?
- [12:06]
Claire
All that matters is what Lane thinks.
- [12:09]
Clark Howard
Well, I'm not going to wear shoulder length hair. And so somebody pops up in the haircut place and says, look here you are talking about this thing on the TikTok. Is this thing really real? And so I gave the explanation on finding money out there that you didn't know was yours.
- [12:27]
Claire
I love it. Okay, let's go to some more questions. This one's from Johnny in Florida. What do you know about USA's checking account processor change? The new USA system debits my checking account one to two days before the payment is sent. This is not a problem for electronic payments. However with paper checks using bill pay, the payments are deducted from the account when the check is sent. Customer service told me I will not receive a canceled check image and I will not get any confirmation that the check was actually cashed. This only becomes a problem when the checks are not cashed, unfortunately or when
- [13:00]
Clark Howard
the check stolen unfortunately.
- [13:02]
Claire
Some of my payees do not cash checks in a timely manner. Some checks remain uncashed for several months due to a problem with the vendor's business office. My question to the customer service is where does the money go if it's not in my account? The only status I get in the bill pay is is processed. Sadly, the days of floating a check are gone with usaa.
- [13:22]
Clark Howard
Well it's actually a lot worse than that Johnny. Any bill pay service that doesn't have an electronic link to an organization you're paying, printing out a paper check is creating hazard for you like you can't imagine. So think about this. They deduct the money from your account and then somebody steals the check in the mail process. You don't know that the check's been diverted, your money's gone already from your account and then maybe you get a dunning notice saying you're past due on whatever you were paying through USAA is bill pay service. And then you're out the money and they want their money. It is a mess. And that's why I don't use bill pay service anymore. Because the problem is in how the bill pay system works now with most financial institutions where the money for any paper checks deducted and then you are in a position where you don't know what happened. Let me tell you, ignorance is not bliss in this case. So what I have gone to and I've found that it's worked much better is that I am paying most of my bills that I have to pay at the site of the vendor. Vendors overwhelmingly now have the ability for you to pay in their payment portal. And so instead of just being able to conveniently go to one bill pay service at my financial institution, I have to go to every single one and pay bills there much safer. And then the audit trail of payment is much clearer. Paper checks are a disaster.
- [15:12]
Claire
Michael in North Carolina says I would like to open a raisin online savings account. Raisin is very high on Clark's list of the best online Savings accounts. @clark.com Raisin wants me to enter my checking account username and password so I can link my account to my new Raisin account. I do not feel comfortable supplying this information to them as it seems safe. Thanks for all of your great information. I've been listening for a very long time.
- [15:35]
Clark Howard
Okay, Michael, so let's talk about Plaid again. Plaid keeps entering into questions, I'd say every other week or every third week. Plaid is not named, but it comes up. Plaid is a platform that the financial industry is gravitating to and it's to handle transmission of money. And Plaid claims that they are the safest thing ever. And we've learned in what we do for a living here that you cannot necessarily trust what another organization says about safety. But so far, Plaid as a platform has turned out to not have hacks or risks to this point. So when you're giving that information, you're basically allowing Plaid to create that connection that you're trying to make with your account, with the Raisin account, with your existing account. That's what they're doing.
- [16:43]
Claire
Right? It's basically when Plaid, if you're on, if you've ever used QuickBooks, or if you're using any type of system that's connecting to your accounts, you'll see a pop up once and you put in your username and password and you see the information about those accounts securely going back and forth. And so if you're using a budgeting tool, you'll often see Plaid or one of the similar platforms pop up and it's, it's transmitting information, not necessarily just money, but like information on your accounts between them. So, yeah, hopefully it's.
- [17:11]
Clark Howard
You said secure. You said securely this time. You said it.
- [17:15]
Claire
Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [17:17]
Clark Howard
They're using what are considered to be secure platforms and so far so good. But we've had so many data breaches of different kinds that there is the outside risk. But in terms of providing that information to properly link your accounts with Plaid being the connecting rod, I think that's a necessary risk for you to take.
- [17:46]
Claire
Yeah, I'm crossing my fingers.
- [17:48]
Clark Howard
Right, so it's. This is, this is tough stuff. You don't hear me say anymore, oh, yeah, that's 100% absolutely safe. I can tell you that it's designed to be safe and so far has been safe. And the risk is worth taking because you're creating the benefit of the account with a small possibility, not even probability, that the information you're supplying could be Compromised. But every time you put things out there, you create a little more risk in your life. But life is not without risk. If it was something that was out risk, we would never get in a car and go anywhere. So you can't eliminate all risk in life. I think that one is worth it. Coming up ahead. Wow. Things coming out of Washington are making some things with health care not worth it. I'm going to talk about that straight ahead. For years, something that's been great is the ability for individuals, families, small businesses to be able to buy health care coverage. That's real. And prior to the ability for you to go on in exchange and buy health care, that had to meet all policies had to meet the same coverages. And they were made pretty simple by, you know, color, you know, silver, bronze, gold, platinum. It became a whole different thing than we had had prior to having the ability to go on a state or federal exchange and buy a plan that all Brian's plans had to have the same coverage, all silver, the same, non like that, preexisting conditions covered. Well, we're at push comes to shove now with individuals, families and small businesses buying health coverage because the cost of health care has gone up so much over the last 15 years that now it's like who's going to pay? Who's going to pay? And most of it, as I've explained in the past, is driven by unconscionable increases in the cost of health care being driven by hospital system monopolies or semi monopolies in metro areas. That's where all the cost pressure is. So somewhere that's gotta show up and it's showing up now and what it actually costs for you to buy a health insurance policy. So the pressure valve that's going on is not just premiums that are increasing, but the cost of hospital care and services offered through hospitals. Even your regular doctor's offices being now owned behind the curtain by hospital systems, driving up the rates for visits to a doctor's office or a specialist office. What's happened is that the premium increases that have been ugly have not been enough to cover the massive increases and costs being driven by these hospital monopolies. And in a lot of market shared monopolies, two or three hospital systems carving up a large metro area and then essentially conspiring to push the cost of all medical care much higher. Doctors are not making any appreciable more money. Pharmaceuticals are a tiny share of the overall cost. It is all being driven by the hospitals. So now we're looking at Looking down the road, not for 26 policies, but by 27, the common deductible in a plan that an individual or family would buy are going crazy. It's going to be over $15,000 on a typical plan per year for an individual deductible, and for a family, over $30,000. And all we're arguing about right now is who's going to suffer the costs. And in individually bought plans, it's ending up being you and me that buy those plans with these very large premiums and then these very high deductibles. So the system is reaching a point that it's going to be totally obvious that people are not going to be able to afford that. And so the people that would. Who's going to say, you know what, I want to pay those big premiums and deal with those deductibles, it's going to be people who already have some form of chronic illness or catastrophic illness. They're the ones that it's actually going to be worth it to buy a policy with the huge premiums and the huge deductibles. The reality is we have to fix this. And the problem is not on the insurance side. The problem is that these hospital systems have been allowed to do great harm to the American people, have been able to establish these monopolies or shared monopolies in markets and essentially push prices up, up, up and away to the point that they're not affordable. And when I think about how this is fixed, there are many different ideas, but the reality is nobody's talking about it, and families and individuals are suffering. And by the way, this is no walk in the park for a company that provides health insurance coverage to its employees. So there's a lot of anger towards the insurance companies, and a lot of things insurance companies do, they shouldn't do. But if you want to look at where the problem is, overwhelmingly what's driving all this is on the cost side. That's what's going to have to be addressed. It's going to have to be addressed actively by the politicians and antitrust is going to have to come into play where the hospital system's ownership of every part of the process of medical care in a market is going to have to be obliterated, because until we create competition in local areas, in metro areas, you and I are going to suffer in the wallet and ultimately in the care that we're going to be able to buy and afford. So when you see the big increases, it's not the big bad insurance company this time.
- [25:03]
Claire
Okay. Anonymous in Wisconsin wrote this to you. Clark, I'm a financial counselor at a nonprofit and so I need to be anonymous for my client's sake. But I learned something I thought your audience would find useful with old credit freezes. I've heard listeners say that credit frozen many years ago is hard to unfreeze later needing to mail in tons of personal documents. I recently met with a client with a TransUnion credit freeze going back about 20 years. He had no idea what the PIN code would have been. Remember, we all had to make those PIN codes back then.
- [25:35]
Clark Howard
However, you know where any of your PIN codes are?
- [25:37]
Claire
I did. I have them saved in a file.
- [25:41]
Clark Howard
Okay, Ms. Goody Two Shoes. I couldn't find mine.
- [25:45]
Claire
All we did was create the online account like you would do for a credit freezing and unfreezing. Once we created the account, it showed credit as frozen and he was able to easily unfreeze his credit. No documents needed. I'm not sure if all the credit bureaus would have been as simple since TransUnion was only the only one he had frozen. Of course, after meeting the meeting, he had all of his credit reports frozen, as they should be. Thank you for all you do.
- [26:10]
Clark Howard
So thank you for sharing this. This happened to one of my sisters in law that her. In her case it was Experian. She had moved several times over the years, had set it up long, long ago, couldn't find her PIN code and contacted them, sent in so so many personal documents. You can't believe Cricket. Cricket never heard anything from them. And I said, you know, why don't you just set up a new account with them and see if you're able to gain control of your credit freeze. And just like it worked for this client with TransUnion, it worked for my sister in law.
- [26:54]
Claire
Great.
- [26:55]
Clark Howard
So that seems to be the the process to reactivate a credit freeze and be able to thaw and freeze it. It's not like the credit freeze wasn't still in place. It's being able to have control of it that you have to regain.
- [27:11]
Claire
Justin in Texas says are any warehouse club credit cards auto approved for applying members. For context, I'm a lawyer who often handles estate administrations for new clients, meaning I was not involved in any pre planning for this client. This can include a widowed retiree who was wholly uninvolved with any financial matters until the first spouse died, leaving the widow with neither a credit history nor a credit card. Having in my back pocket a suggestion such as get a Costco membership and you'll then be able to get a Costco credit card would be nice if accurate. I welcome any other ideas to quickly remedy the problem after it already exists. Even if the only realistic option is starting with a retail store junk credit and progressing from there. Thanks for all you and your team do to help promote financial literacy and savvy decision making, Justin.
- [28:02]
Clark Howard
Thank you for that. So, Justin, Sam's Club, BJ's Wholesale, that's new in Texas, and Costco all have their credit card programs that they push very heavily. And with Costco, when you go in to buy a membership, they're pushing right at the membership desk. Wouldn't you like a Costco Visa card at the same time? And for people that are already a member, you'll walk by and they'll say, wouldn't you like this new tote bag today if you apply for a Costco Visa card? Because people spend more in the stores when they have the card and the stores earn money back from whoever their credit card partner is. But they're not auto approval, they're not automatic. Just because you apply for a membership and at the same time apply for the credit card, it's not an automatic thing. But my son at 19 got his first Costco membership.
- [29:02]
Claire
Oh, wow. That is a Howard rite of passage if I've ever.
- [29:06]
Clark Howard
Well, the only problem is he did it 19 instead of 18. Anyway.
- [29:10]
Claire
Wow, you failed as a parent.
- [29:12]
Clark Howard
Yeah. And the person said, would you like a Costco Visa car? He's like, sure I would. And he got approved.
- [29:20]
Claire
Wow, that's great.
- [29:22]
Clark Howard
Yeah. And income, what income does he have in college? Reverse income. So anyway, it is possible. Who knows why he got his. But this is a good idea. And it's not junk credit with the warehouse clubs. Because if a store branded card is what's known as a CO brand, which means it has a Visa or MasterCard logo on it. It's good credit on your credit report, not junk credit.
- [29:53]
Claire
And then for Justin's clients, if that doesn't work, would you suggest a secured card as the path to.
- [29:59]
Clark Howard
Yeah. Establishing credit, credit union membership and one of their card programs which are generally superior to a secured card.
- [30:09]
Claire
Okay. And I just want you to note, Clark, the theme of these questions. These are all Clarkey's who help other people financially. And I love it. This one's from Tammy in Nevada. Clark, I know you Nevada. I know you love the entrepreneurial path, but I have a warning for new and small business owners. I'm a software developer with a side gig where I help people with their finances. As a daily money manager, shout out to Clark for being my muse. I came within a cat's whisker of getting my computer hacked today. I accepted a teams meeting invite from a prospective client and luckily my virus protection raised a stink and wouldn't let me connect to the meeting. The link was not from teams and attempted to download a file but luckily my instincts kicked in and I immediately turned off my wi fi and deleted the files. I typed this and as my virus protection runs a full scan. We small business owners are so excited about the prospect of new clients, it's easy to get tricked. Please remind my fellow clarkeys, never click on a link from an unknown sender and you set up the meeting, not them. Love the show and treasure your wisdom.
- [31:17]
Clark Howard
So, Tammy, thank you so much for mentioning this. So what I don't know from what you said if this was specifically targeted at you because of your approach with getting new clients and things like that, because I have been receiving these fake meeting invitations too. Do you get.
- [31:37]
Claire
I've got a couple of fake meeting invitations and then I've gotten the fake punch bowl and other like Evite kind of things that have come to my inbox.
- [31:47]
Clark Howard
So when I get the fake meeting invitations, since I know I'm not setting up, you know, I'm not supposed to have a meeting with whoever, I'm just deleting them. I'm not getting as far as opening them. In Tammy's case, with new clients all the time, it was normal to click on it. And then fortunately, before any harm happened, you were good. And now you've helped other people by sharing the warning about this is a new way to bring havoc into people's lives. Appreciate it very much. And, you know, isn't it fun? You think about today's podcast, how much we've learned from each other today. I mean, that's what it's about. It's about spirit of community. I believe so much in community. I believe how much in our own neighborhood, our own street, our own city, county, state, and these United States, how much we can all do for each other to help each other, to make our communities better. And this is an example where we do it in a whole different way on a YouTube show and podcast where we all work together to help each other. I love that.
- [33:03]
Claire
I love it, too.
- [33:05]
Clark Howard
So thank you for being with us today. And in that spirit, I look forward to serving you again later this week. And in everything we do, whether it's markets in the United States where I'm on the evening news every day or if you hear me on radio in your community. Our websites, clark.com, clarkdeals.com our social media, it's all about you. Did I miss anything?
- [33:34]
Claire
Well, this podcast and we have our YouTube channel and which is YouTube.comclark. and then tomorrow, you can tune in for a new edition of Ask an Advisor with Wes Moss, where we take your investment questions.
- [33:49]
Clark Howard
So empowerment all different ways so you can save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off. And Wes, tomorrow, us on Wednesday.