Affordability

Re "It's not so 'affordable' here," Column, July 9 The Affordable Care Act has helped California close its budget gap by half a billion dollars a year. This fact is missing from George Skelton's column, which overstates the costs of the Medi-Cal expansion and ignores offsetting savings. After 2016, the state will be responsible for only 5% to 10% of the cost to cover newly enrolled Medi-Cal patients, no less than a 9-1 match on the state's investment. Skelton misses the point that the healthcare law is not a burden but a bargain, especially for California, with its high uninsured rate.

Financially strapped homeowners who are close to foreclosure may want to face the music now rather than continuing to struggle with their monthly payments. There's a high probability of losing the house anyway, even with the government's help. According to a new report, people who take advantage of a key federal program to modify their mortgages in an effort to save their homes are defaulting "at an alarming rate. " The report from the special inspector general for the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program doesn't say why an inordinately high percentage of owners who take part in the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, are unable to maintain their loan modifications.

Housing affordability is on the decline in California as rising prices make the state's real estate costlier. An estimated 48% of home buyers could afford to purchase a single-family, median-priced home at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the California Assn. of Realtors. That was a decline from 49% in the prior quarter and 55% during the same period a year prior. Buyers needed to earn a minimum of $66,940 to qualify for purchasing a median-priced, $353,190 home.

The Obama administration's Home Affordable Refinance Program is at last helping legions of American homeowners with upside-down mortgages. Nearly 1.1 million homeowners with little or no equity were able to refinance last year under HARP, which assists borrowers who are current on their monthly payments. That's nearly as many as in the three previous years combined, and the latest figures show that early this year, the pace of these refis abated only slightly. The program has become a success story after a stumbling start with slack lender participation.

California homes are getting less affordable as property values rise, a real estate group says , offsetting the benefit to home shoppers from low mortgage interest rates. The California Assn. of Realtors estimated that 49% of homebuyers in the third quarter could afford a median-priced house in California, a decline from 51% last quarter. Quiz: How much do you know about California's economy? The group estimated that those buying a house needed to earn a minimum annual income of $65,810 to qualify for the purchase of a median-priced house in the state, which the group estimated at $339,860 at the end of the third quarter.

Last year was probably one of the most affordable years ever to buy a house as prices bottomed and mortgage interest rates hit record lows. The National Assn. of Realtors reported that 2012 will probably go down as a record year for housing affordability, according to its affordability index. That measure, which is calculated based on the median home price, family income and the average mortgage interest rate, stood at 198.2 in November. The higher the index number, the more purchasing power available to consumers.

The American dream of owning a home is as strong as ever, but the number of people who can afford homes is steadily shrinking. Instead of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, some prospective homeowners are being told to learn to live with less. Even though inflation has remained tame for the last few years, inflation-adjusted personal income has not kept pace and, as a result, the first-time home buyer now has about 90% of the home purchasing power that his counterpart had 15 years ago.

Luxury has a new look and feel in Las Vegas, a more accurate reflection of the economic downturn's effect on bank accounts, home values and egos. Across Las Vegas, the focus on approachable luxury is apparent in menus with more affordable selections, value-added hotel packages and, perhaps most welcome, renewed attention to customer service. Tom McCartney, president and chief operating officer of the recently reinvigorated Tropicana, calls the new service model "mass customization.

Home Affordability Index Drops: Higher mortgage rates took away purchasing power from first-time home buyers during the first quarter of 1989, pushing home ownership further out of reach for many people trying to enter the market, the National Assn. of Realtors said. The NAR's First-Time Home Buyer Affordability Index measured 74.9 for the first three months of the year, meaning that the typical first-time buyer had 74.9% of the income needed to qualify to buy the typical starter home.

It's no surprise that Los Angeles should lag behind such emerald stars as Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Seattle in terms of sustainability . . . but Cleveland? Omaha? Dallas? Apparently so. According to the 2008 SustainLane U.S. City Rankings, which rate the nation's 50 largest cities in terms of urban sustainability, Los Angeles is behind those cities, and 21 others as well. The city fell three spots from last year, to No. 28. Why? Here's one clue: Rankings are based on factors including air quality, roadway congestion, sprawl and housing affordability.

During a honeymoon trip to Los Angeles, Chris Hansen and his new wife, Shoni, decided not to skimp on their visit to Universal Studios Hollywood. They booked a pricey tour for the theme park that included a buffet lunch, an escort to the front of the line of every ride and a behind-the-scene visit to the property and wardrobe departments on the studio's television and movie lot. The experience set the couple back $299 each, compared with the regular $80 admission price. But they didn't complain.

SAN ANTONIO - The Lakers left the site of Monday's practice, a local high school, muttering that the court was a little too hard, forcing some unexpected bounces. In other words, it looked just like Sunday's game against San Antonio. The Lakers committed 18 turnovers in their 91-79 loss, nothing out of the ordinary for them during a season in which they almost always had more miscues than their opponents. The problem now is that their scoring is so low without Kobe Bryant, they can't afford to give the ball away when they have it. They're pledging to be more careful in Game 2 of their first-round series Wednesday.

The star trotted toward a small pad in the middle of the 80-foot stage and stopped on his mark. "Look at the camera!" veteran animal trainer Steve Martin commanded. Like a true pro, Shadow, a gray wolf who has made appearances on HBO's "True Blood" series, turned his head and fixed his piercing yellow eyes at the camera operator. "Good boy," another trainer said, tossing him a morsel of meat. PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments The shot was among several animal scenes filmed on the giant green-screen stage at Hollywood Center Studios last week, where a leopard, a lion, a monkey, an elephant and even two grizzly bears from Frasier Park performed simple tasks on the empty stage as a film crew captured their movements, snarls, roars and grunts.

WASHINGTON - As Republican leaders try to woo Latino voters with a new openness to legal status for the nation's illegal immigrants, the party remains at odds with America's fastest-growing ethnic community on another key issue: healthcare. Latinos, who have the lowest rates of health coverage in the country, are among the strongest backers of President Obama's healthcare law. In a recent national poll, supporters outnumbered detractors by more than 2 to 1. Latinos also overwhelmingly see guaranteeing healthcare as a core government responsibility, surveys show.

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - After George Lucas abandoned plans to build a movie studio along a woodsy road in Marin County, he complained about the permitting process in a place so environmentally friendly that hybrid-car ownership is four times the state average. His next move, some here say, was payback for what Lucas described in a written statement as the "bitterness and anger" expressed by his neighbors. The creator of "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" is working with a local foundation that hopes to build hundreds of units of affordable housing on a former dairy farm called Grady Ranch, where his studio would have risen.

One figure in a new report neatly summarizes the potential pitfalls for Obamacare: 30.1%. That's how much premiums could rise next year, on average, for the roughly 1.3 million moderate- and upper-income Californians who buy individual health insurance policies. Most of that increase is attributable to the insurance reforms in the 2010 law, also known as the Affordable Care Act. The bill's title is not ironic - its provisions will slow the growth of healthcare costs and lead over time to a more rational and efficient system.

Recent articles (Aug. 8) in The Times on Orange County housing prices have gone on and on about hypothetical affordability indices. What's the point? Of course we have very high housing prices in Orange County. (It took my family eight years to save up for the 29-year-old, three-bedroom house we bought two months ago.) But is there a better way than high prices to decide which of California's roughly 25 million citizens will be able to live here? Would you rather turn to the government to decide on the basis of "need"?

Re "Stem an Unhealthy Tide," editorial, June 19: Universal health care may very well be a political goal, but only after the subject has been aired. If not taken up now, those tomorrows will never come. Every aspect of the system is ailing. The patients don't trust their doctors. Employer health care is falling apart. Providers are disgruntled, coerced, overworked and underpaid. Blame is cast in all directions. We will patch the system again and again, fostering constant change. But meanwhile the $600,000 requested to fund a study of universal health care can point us in a direction that is intended to create stability and affordability for everyone in a quality health care system.

Though public debate over the future of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is proper and healthy, it is important that customers understand exactly how their rates are calculated and how utilities' costs are recovered from long-term investments in critical electricity grid infrastructure.   On its face, Times columnist Michael Hiltzik's argument that utility customers should not have to pay for a power plant that, like San Onofre, is not currently producing electricity seems perfectly logical.

So many doorknobs, so few correct choices. That's the dilemma drinkers face night after night in Los Angeles, which becomes a literal question at Lock & Key, Koreatown's new speak-easy and craft cocktail bar. Upon entering the signless box of a building on Vermont and 3rd you find yourself in a dim, rectangular room painted black. Its walls are covered with vintage doorknobs and you're instructed to choose the one that will open the actual door to the bar. "You're getting warmer," the dapper doorman will say as you grope around in the dark, placing your hand on a promising-looking cut glass doorknob and then a tarnished brass one. (Fair warning: The door isn't where you think it should be, it turns out.)