WASHINGTON - Ruth Titus, a 59-year-old cook from Taos, N.M., leaped at the opportunity in July to sign up for health insurance under a new federally subsidized program for uninsured people with health problems. With her history of bladder cancer, she said, ‘it was hopeless to even look’ for private coverage because she’d be turned down.

Titus is one of what some officials say has been an unexpectedly small number of people to sign up for the program, which the Obama administration touted as an early benefit of the new health overhaul law. It began last month in 30 states with the expectation that many thousands of uninsured people would apply for the opportunity to get comprehensive coverage regardless of their health status, but that hasn’t been the case.

About 3,600 people have applied and about 1,200 have been approved so far in state plans that started in the beginning of July, according to data from the states and federal government. Officials say that the new plans, although they’re a better deal than anything comparable on the private market, still may be unaffordable for many people. Eligibility requirements are another possible barrier, and states have had little time to publicize the […]

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WASHINGTON — Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. Friday’s report from the Treasury Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow the tide of foreclosures in the United States, economists say.

More than 2.3 million homes have fallen into foreclosure since the recession began in December 2007, according to foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. Economists expect the number of foreclosures to grow well into next year.

‘The government program as currently structured is petering out. It is taking in fewer homeowners, more are dropping out and fewer people are ending up in permanent modifications,’ said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

Besides forcing people from their homes, foreclosures and distressed home sales have pushed down on home values and crippled the broader housing industry. They have made it difficult for homebuilders to compete with the depressed prices and discouraged potential sellers from putting their homes on the market.

Approximately 630,000 people who had tried to get their monthly mortgage payments lowered through the government program have been cut loose through July, […]

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The bailouts of Chrysler and General Motors have had no shortage of critics, this page among them. We were against the idea in the waning days of the Bush administration, saying that automakers should instead use bankruptcy to shed debt, cut costs and rework labor contracts. When President Obama linked government help to bankruptcy restructuring, we saw some hope but were still skeptical.

With GM filing paperwork Wednesday to return to its status as a publicly traded company, it’s time to ask whether some crow needs to be eaten, at least as it concerns GM. The answer is: possibly.

It’s far too early to declare the GM bailout an unqualified success. But it is certainly going a lot better than critics thought likely. News of the initial public offering of stock follows a lightning fast exit from reorganization, two profitable quarters, the repayment of a $7 billion loan and rising consumer satisfaction scores. GM, in fact, could now be in better shape than the economy as a whole, which is saying a lot considering that two years ago it could have been mistaken for roadkill. It certainly is a leaner, healthier company, thanks to the forced restructuring, and the devastated Detroit economy […]

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They’ve been called McMansions, Starter Castles, Garage Mahals and Faux Chateaus but here’s the latest thing you can call them - History.

In the past few years, there have been an increasing number of references made to the ‘McMansion glut

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While America’s super-rich congratulate themselves on donating billions to charity, the rest of the country is worse off than ever. Long-term unemployment is rising and millions of Americans are struggling to survive. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever and the middle class is disappearing.

Ventura is a small city on the Pacific coast, about an hour’s drive north of Los Angeles. Luxury homes with a view of the ocean dot the hillsides, and the beaches are popular with surfers. Ventura is storybook California. ‘It’s a well-off place,’ says Captain William Finley. ‘But about 20 percent of the city is what we call at risk of homelessness.’ Finley heads the local branch of the Salvation Army.

Last summer Ventura launched a pilot program, managed by Finley, that allows people to sleep in their cars within city limits. This is normally illegal, both in Ventura and in the rest of the country, where local officials and residents are worried about seeing run-down vans full of Mexican migrant workers parked on residential streets.

But sometime at the beginning of last year, people in Ventura realized that the cars parked in front of their driveways at night weren’t old wrecks, but well-tended station […]

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