A genetic test that predicts who will need medullary thyroid carcinoma.
One thousand cases of it are diagnosed in the U.S. every year.
It's the first cancer that can be detected by a simple blood test.
It can be totally cured by surgery.
The test is 100% accurate.
Indeed, that is some pretty good news.
And as we watch and wait for the overhaul of the nation's health care system as well.
Now today, President Clinton backed away from his demand for 100% universal coverage and
the so-called employer mandate.
As Peter Barnes reports from Washington, it's all about politics.
Struggling to find a compromise on health care reform, President Clinton backed off
his demand for universal coverage.
We know we're not going to get right at 100%, but we know that you've got to get somewhere
in the ballpark of 95 or other upwards so that you stop the cost shifting.
That acknowledgement could help the president save face as the debate over health care reform
moves into its final critical weeks on Capitol Hill.
In January, the president said he would veto any bill that didn't include coverage for
quote, every American.
His new position gives him a political opening to sign a bill with a more modest goal.
You cannot physically get 100%.
There's no way to get 100%.
Social Security only had 98 and it just moved from 97 a couple years ago.
But I think you have to have the universal coverage goal.
The president's speech to the nation's governors reflects political reality.
This week, members of Congress have been meeting behind closed doors to try to blend half a
dozen different health care bills.
But few expect a final bill that covers 100% of Americans.
The reason is that most Senate Republicans and some conservative Democrats oppose the
president's plan for getting there, requiring most employers to buy coverage for their workers.
And right now, the opposition has enough votes to kill any bill by filibuster.
I think there are some areas we're willing, but some we just can't compromise.
We just have to fight them out on the floor.
If it's employer mandate, that may happen sometime, but it's not going to happen this
year.
Faced with that threat, the president was conciliatory on that issue too.
There may be some way other than an employer mandate to do this.
The president's comments could make for some interesting domestic politics here at the
White House.
Earlier in the day, first lady Hillary Clinton, who the president put in charge of health
care reform, reiterated her support for covering everyone.
I'm Peter Barnes for Money Tonight.
One thing the president has given up on is forcing states to convert highway signs from
miles to kilometers.
The Federal Highway Administration had intended to require states to make the conversion by
September of 1996.
Public and congressional opposition put the kibosh on that plan.
Well, you're always on the move.
If you are always on the move, there's a good chance that you'll be packing up and moving
sooner or later.
You need to plan on how to avoid the hassles and the headaches, and we're going to show
you how.
And it's no picnic shopping for a used car either.
What to buy, what to avoid.
Call us with your used car questions at 800-800-CNBC.
That's 800-800-CNBC.
Money Tonight rolls on for a Tuesday in just a moment.
This program is sponsored by the Burger Funds.
I'm Bill Berger, a father and a grandfather, and I know kids have big dreams.
As a parent, you want to help your children reach their dreams.
But with college costs being what they are, the only way to make dreams possible for tomorrow
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After all, kids will always have big dreams.
We just like to help you make them come true.
This is what carmakers see when they search the heavens for inspiration.
The Mercedes Benz.
Every week, Barron's offers the wealth of investment information you need.
And if you subscribe today, you'll receive this Barron's investment guide free, a $13.95
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Be there now with the local long distance and cellular provider.
Hate the thought of moving.
The average American moves 11 times in a lifetime.
20% of us are moving this year.
And with that in mind, Elizabeth Crenshaw presents a very moving story.
This is the Maldonado family of Fairfax, Virginia, and today is moving day.
The next time they see their possessions home will be Richmond, Minnesota.
Well, it's an experience, you know, it's an experience to do that kind of thing.
Moving is the third most stressful event in life, just behind death and divorce.
That's why people dread it so much.
But there are some things you can do to make moving easier.
Plan ahead.
You can never start planning too soon for moving.
Moving professionals tell us you should start your planning six to eight weeks before moving
day.
That will ease some of the hardships of closing up one life and moving on to the next.
Try to select at least three movers to come to your house to provide you with their story
and the estimates that they will provide you for a particular relocation.
You can use friends and neighbors and word of mouth to find a good mover with a solid
reputation.
You can also check a movers reputation with consumer organizations and most importantly,
you should ask to see the movers performance report.
This is information gathered by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
It shows you exactly how well that carrier performed.
Any carrier that has a performance rating below a 95 means that they've got some problems
that they have not addressed and you're going to end up with more damage with that type
of carrier.
Another thing to remember, if your possessions are damaged, you will only get 60 cents per
pound no matter how valuable the item is.
So you should consider buying additional protection.
And as for economizing, remember this, don't move it if you don't use it.
That includes such things as old books, old records, unused furniture, firewood, household
junk.
The bottom line is, if you haven't used something in five years, don't pay to move it.
And finally, pay attention to all the paperwork.
The inventory list will be extremely important if you run into any problems.
You know, it's hard to make this big move and I don't really want to do it again, but
it's nice.
Elizabeth Crenshaw for CNBC.
Well saving up and moving to a new home is just part of the big money picture.
In our Money Talk Personal Finance segment, an investing plan for a lifetime from the
pages of Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.
And today we're going to take a look at how to make money in stocks over time, a long
time with Fred Fraley, Deputy Editor of Kiplinger's.
Nice to see you, Fred.
Hi, how are you?
You know, I'm great, thank you, and it's nice to have you here tonight.
The thought of an investment plan for life can be kind of overwhelming for some people.
What exactly do you mean by that?
Well we propose, Sue, is really something I call the lazy man's way and lazy woman's
way to get rich over time.
And it has essentially three underpinnings.
Number one is a method of identifying stocks that you don't have to buy in July and sell
in October.
You can hold them for years and for decades.
Those kind of stocks.
Secondly, an inexpensive way to invest small amounts of money regularly, just as you would
in mutual funds.
And thirdly, methods and strategies to keep your money going in, to build your portfolio,
build up your wealth, keep the plan sharp.
Alright, so what's the first step then?
What do you have to do first to set yourself up for this kind of a situation?
You don't want stocks that are cyclical stocks, the kind that go up and down with the economy.
You don't want tricky stocks.
And you list a lot of them in the article.
We set certain criteria that you ought to expect out of a stock that deserves to be
held a long time.
One is that the earnings go up eight years out of every ten.
That the dividends are raised eight years out of every ten.
That debt is very low.
And most important, you don't want to pay too much for these companies.
There are a lot of great companies that are growing like Topsy right now, but they have
huge price earnings ratios.
So we said this kind of stock you should buy when the P-E ratio is lower than the overall
markets.
And hundreds of stocks fit that criteria, which leads to the second part.
And so many do, how do you buy them, say, $100 a month without giving all your money
to the stockbrokers?
And the answer is find the ones with dividend reinvestment plans.
Which are called drips.
Drips, right, that are fair to investors.
A lot of them aren't fair to investors.
They charge commissions to sell you shares directly.
And Merck is a company that does that.
Skip them.
Bristol Myers.
Skip them.
They do the same thing.
Most companies, though, once you own a single share of stock, will sell you all the shares
you want, essentially, in small amounts every month, every quarter.
And how do you find these companies?
Well, there are numerous guides of dividend reinvestment plans.
Money Paper sells a nice one.
Standard Imports does.
There's a great one put out of Tyler, Texas, by Suzanne Mitchell.
So they're all sorts of good guides.
Now, what about investment clubs?
How do they rank?
They're a great way to do this.
What we did, however, because this is essentially a lot of the way investment clubs work.
And we've set out a plan for individuals.
A club could do it, too.
But investment plans essentially do the same thing, except that they're used to trading
more.
But the criteria that you come up with are going to lead you to a certain kind of company.
And generally, I call them large growth companies.
These are companies like Walgreen.
You look at that company now.
It's been beaten up quite a bit.
And it's growing at about 15% a year.
Has no debt, whatever, and a PE of something like 14.
Well, the S&P's trading PE is 20.
They're giving it away.
Lots of suggestions in this article in Kiplinger.
Fred Fraley, thanks so much for joining us tonight.
Back to you, Janice.
Next up, Sue, exercising on the run, the latest in gadgets for people on the go.
And if driving a used car is more your speed, we'll be taking your calls on what used cars
to buy and how to avoid the lemons.
Give us a call at 800-800-CNBC, that's 1-800-800-CNBC.
We'll be right back.
This is CNBC.
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Call now toll free in the continental U.S. 800-238-1400.
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Phones Across America is sponsored today by Sprint, not just another phone company.
Well, how can you stay in shape if you're constantly on the road?
Well, there's a good chance that there are a number of companies out there that want
to help if you just buy their product.
And it is the latest boom within the fitness boom.
It's called portable exercise equipment.
Scott Cohn checked out what's new at the National Sporting Good Show in Chicago.
At this year's National Sporting Good Show, little was big.
Ready?
You're off.
Right in the privacy of your hotel room, you can firm up those thighs, tone up that tummy.
Every time it goes through the x-ray at the airport, they, what is that?
It's my ab isolator.
And if the guy in the room below doesn't mind, you can do some aerobics.
The people who are serious about fitness want to take it with them when they go.
Sometimes there's a club available depending on where they're staying.
Sometimes they're not.
So if they're serious about it, they want to stay at it every day.
Americans spent some $300 million on fitness to go last year.
So it should come as little surprise that there are more and more companies trying to
gain a piece of that pie.
And there are more and more products to choose from.
But how do you choose?
An ab isolator for $29.95?
A heavy rope cross trainer for $49.95?
That's a lot of money.
Money that exercise physiologist Scott Douglas says you might not need to spend.
There are a lot of things you can do on the road without equipment, first of all.
And if you're able to get out, that's a good thing.
You can go out and walk.
No time for that?
Well, if you're set on buying equipment, Douglas is partial to items that give you some resistance
training or some aerobic exercise.
But whatever you do, experts say, don't just rely on the sales pitch.
Talk to someone who's used the product or better yet, ask to try it out first yourself.
That way, not only won't you feel so guilty about that big lunch you had with the client,
you also won't feel so guilty about what you spent to work it off.
Scott Cohn, Money Tonight, Chicago.
The 1995 Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique rolled off the assembly lines in Kansas City,
Missouri today.
The cars are the North American version of Ford's global cars designed and developed
with Ford employees in Europe and North America.
But if you're interested in buying a used set of wheels, now's your chance to learn
how to spot the good deals.
Used car book Jack Gillis' Guide to the Best and Worst from 1985 to 1994 is in bookstores
now.
And Jack Gillis joins us from our Washington Bureau.
He'll be taking your phone calls in just a moment.
How you doing there, Jack?
Good.
How are you?
Good.
How are you?
Well, this is the first interview.
Thanks for saving it for money tonight.
All right.
A lot of people are buying used cars right now.
What's your main advice for them?
Well, first of all, it's a really good buy.
New car prices have gone up exponentially, so there's an awful lot of good reasons to
buy a used car.
In the old days, you often thought that buying a used car was really buying somebody else's
troubles.
But today, people change cars so rapidly that that's not necessarily the case if you know
what to look for.
I think the key still remains making sure you get a mechanic to check it over very,
very carefully and finding a car from someone you know, which is surprising to most people.
Buy a car from someone you know.
If you'll talk to them after the air conditioner breaks or something, you can remain friends
after that, of course.
That's right.
What about the car services?
Those 800 numbers that say they'll get you the cheapest car, are you for that?
Well, some of them are actually pretty good, but the key is you have to know what is the
cheapest car.
And the best way to do that is to look up the prices of the cars you're interested in
in the NADA Blue Book.
It's actually an orange book that's available in most libraries, credit unions, and bookstores.
And it'll give you the wholesale and retail prices of the cars that you're interested
in.
It's not only a good way to narrow down your choices, but it's also a good way to find
out how much you should be asking for the car you may be selling.
We've done some investigations on used car auctions.
Do you also advise to stay away from them?
Absolutely.
That's where you find most of the cars with or cars with a higher likelihood of a rolled
back odometer, which is the biggest problem facing consumers of used cars.
And secondly, you never know who owned that car, so you never know how the car was treated.
Typically, a lot of these cars in auctions are from big leased fleets, which weren't
really treated very nicely or very carefully by their owners.
All right.
We have to go to the phones.
I have lots of questions, but we have to get to our viewers' calls.
Bill from Alabama, you're up for Jack.
Good evening, Jack.
Good evening, Bill.
I was just wondering if you thought that the program cars, such as demonstrators that some
car dealers sell, were a good investment.
I generally recommend staying away from them because you never know really what a program
car is.
It's a term that's being used today often to describe a car that was in a leasing program.
And again, leasing programs can be very, very difficult on cars.
Instead, I would look around for some of the cars offered for sale by some of the rental
car agencies, such as Hertz and Budget and Navist, because you get the complete maintenance
record with those cars.
All right.
Let's go to George.
I'm from Illinois.
Hi, George.
Yeah.
Hi, Jack.
You've mentioned repeatedly that we should try and purchase a car from somebody we know,
but if that's not possible and you're at a used car lot, if you get the vehicle identification
number, can you take that to your DMV and have them run the number and find out about
the previous problems perhaps?
Maybe they traded it into the dealer because there were problems or maybe the odometer
has been rolled back?
Well, that's a good thing.
In some states, you can find out who the previous owner was.
In other states, rather controversial because a lot of people don't want you to have access
to those records.
In some states, that's private information, but it's not a bad thing to do.
Better, though, check the title itself.
If, for example, the used car dealer doesn't have the title, that's your sign that there's
a problem.
Stay away from that car.
If the title, for example, is folded right along the numbers or folded right along the
name of the previous owner, stay away from those cars.
One thing about used cars is that there are over 18 million for sale every year, so you
have a lot of choices.
Don't fall in love with that great red convertible if you have any questions whatsoever about
it because there's going to be three or four more down the road.
Jack, the book is called The Used Car Book.
We wish you luck with this version of it.
Thanks so much for saving your first interview for money tonight.
My pleasure.
Always good to see you.
Thanks.
That's all the time we have for now.
I'm Janice Lieberman.
It's easy to fall in love with those little red convertibles, too.
I want one.
I'm Sue Herrera.
Coming up tomorrow, video piracy.
New movies hitting the streets before they hit the theaters, and we're all paying for
it.
It's video piracy.
I'm Sue Herrera.
Thanks for joining us tonight.
We'll see you again tomorrow for CNBC's Money Tonight.
You're guaranteed to profit from tuning in.
Good night, everybody.