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Healthcare will always be an issue. I am paying as much for Medicare and supplementary healthcare at 72 as I did for my retiree healthcare at 62. With Medicare, Supplementary healthcare and a prescription plan and deductibles my wife and I are paying about 10K per year. There seems to be no way around it if you want to protect yourself from possible financial ruin. Hospital bills can run 10K to 15K a day if you are seriously ill with a life threatening condition. Chemo can run $6K or more per week for as long as you need it, which can be periodically for life. A hospital aspirin can be billed to you at $5. It's completely crazy.
My gosh - Medicare Supplementary plans are much cheaper than that. And we're in California.
My out of pocket maximum is $6700. Period.
While it's true Medicare is not cheap - and still keeps insurance companies in business (which no one tells you) they are far from what you are citing...... what market are you in?
Right now we have a substantial shortage of skilled employees; encouraging high-value-add 50-64 year olds to exit the workforce would have a substantial negative impact on productivity, national income, and make the shortage even worse. Employers are hiring pretty much anyone who can fog a mirror; there just are not enough good quality employees to go around.
Moreover, given expanding life expectancies, we need more people working and paying taxes, health insurance premiums, FICA premiums and Medicare premiums - not less people.
I'll trade my higher paid full time job for a lower paid part time job. It's a wash.
What about working part time or with a contract agency? Sometimes you can buy into some sort of insurance, plus as small as the income may be for that kind of work, it still gives you some money to add to your Roth or IRA (you can only add from "earned" income), and you may be able to get insurance.
The ACA is still available, with subsidies, if you qualify. Warning: The premiums are very high for older people, and deductibles are high for the lower levels, and there are few choices in some areas. In my state there is only one ins. co. still offering it (there is a second one, but it's useless; no one buys it). Still, it would help for a catastrophic illness. I found that many doctors in some areas will not take it, or will not take the lower levels of insurance plans. But if you qualify for a subsidy, it's an option.
With Medicare, Supplementary healthcare and a prescription plan and deductibles my wife and I are paying about 10K per year.
If you are paying $10K/year for the two of you, then you aren't paying enough. We consume on average north of $11K per person per year of medical care in the USA, so the insurance needs to be at least $11K per person per year, on average, plus more for administration.
Health Insurance is expensive because the thing being insured -- medical care -- is expensive.
Right now we have a substantial shortage of skilled employees; encouraging high-value-add 50-64 year olds to exit the workforce would have a substantial negative impact on productivity, national income, and make the shortage even worse.
That is debatable. Consider any STEM university-faculty position. How many well-qualified candidates are there for every position? In some fields - and I don't mean ethnic studies or psychology or philosophy or whatever - we have far too many graduates, than jobs... especially at the PhD level. One solution is to get 50-64 year olds to retire, creating vacancies for the younger generation... who are aggressive, eager and energetic.
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Originally Posted by RationalExpectations
Moreover, given expanding life expectancies, we need more people working and paying taxes, health insurance premiums, FICA premiums and Medicare premiums - not less people.
Perhaps. But an alternative solution, that unfortunately is not politically tractable, is to import millions of young immigrants, who would work and pay taxes.
We are in New Jersey. We have Medicare, Cigna supplemental partially subsidized by the company I retired from, Silverscript for prescriptions, Met Life for dental. Three years ago I was hospitalized for 23 days plus needed 8 days of chemo. Hospital bill was roughly $375K. Out of pocket was $1700.
For my wife and I out of pocket for drugs and doctors and dentist generally run about $2000 a year. Medicare runs about $3200. Cigna supplemental is $1500, Prescription plan is $2200, Dental is $600. Total is $9500. Like I had said, medical costs for us are about $10K per year.
We have about a dozen blood tests a year, I have 5 or 6 oncology visits, periodic chemo, iron infusions, 3 to 4 cardiology visits a year, a rheumatologist visit, and we each see our GP and dentist about 3 times a year, plus periodic tests like Cat scan, Petscan, x-ray, echo cardiogram, halter monitor, mammogram, etc. I take 10 pills a day for my heart, to prevent gout, BP and prostate, just one of which would run $800 a month without a plan. We get our money paid in premiums back many, many times over.
Up to the age of 69 I was in great health, never a smoker, daily walker, gardener, correct weight, was on no medications at all, sensible diet, relaxed lifestyle, retired at 62. You can't predict how fast your health can go downhill.
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Originally Posted by mlb
My gosh - Medicare Supplementary plans are much cheaper than that. And we're in California.
My out of pocket maximum is $6700. Period.
While it's true Medicare is not cheap - and still keeps insurance companies in business (which no one tells you) they are far from what you are citing...... what market are you in?
We have a nice nest egg and I want to just say F-it when I turn 55 in 1.5 years but healthcare scares the hell out of me. There is no predicting what the healthcare issue is going to look like no matter who is in office. Anybody else in this boat or found a way to make it work? I’m so tired of the rat race and just want to be done with it, but.........healthcare.
Yeah, healthcare is a big issue. Once you get to Medicare you are home free, but for you that would be at least a 10-year wait.
I suggest getting online and doing some investigation on health care options for someone in your situation, i.e., retiring at 55. If you don't mind considering a move when you retire you might find more attractive options in other states. It's gonna take some time, so be prepared. Once you have some numbers you can run some projections to see if it's worth it to you.
Yeah, healthcare is a big issue. Once you get to Medicare you are home free, but for you that would be at least a 10-year wait.
I suggest getting online and doing some investigation on health care options for someone in your situation, i.e., retiring at 55. If you don't mind considering a move when you retire you might find more attractive options in other states. It's gonna take some time, so be prepared. Once you have some numbers you can run some projections to see if it's worth it to you.
It's a tough call. Good luck...
dental is our waterloo...it is thousands for the two of us every year ..if it isn't my wife it is me .
Neither medicare nor the supplemental coverage base their rates on what you consume. Everyone pays the same amount whether you consume millions or nothing. In the past 5 years we have consumed close to $500K in medical costs. Medicare and Cigna have deals with the providers where they pay a smaller portion than is actually billed and the provider accepts it. But even the amount they actually paid is far more than our premiums would ever cover. That's insurance. Many die early or are healthy enough to never see a doctor, so medicare and SS and the insurance companies are way ahead on them. Many without adequate coverage just don't pay their bills and the doctors and hospitals get a tax write off of the super inflated bills. It works for everyone who can afford the insurance, and for the providers, more or less.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RationalExpectations
If you are paying $10K/year for the two of you, then you aren't paying enough. We consume on average north of $11K per person per year of medical care in the USA, so the insurance needs to be at least $11K per person per year, on average, plus more for administration.
Health Insurance is expensive because the thing being insured -- medical care -- is expensive.
Insurers are most concerned with paying the least amount. If given the opportunity they will utilize whatever means necessary (regulations/lack of, exclusions, deductibles, etc.) to ensure that they don't have to pay for something. We need a better plan. It is my contention that eventually we will need to have a national plan like most highly-developed countries. It could be a benefit to our economy because it would free up people to move jobs, even the playing field for all levels of business by putting insurance with the individual not the company, and allowing people who are ready to leave the workforce make that decision based on retirement income not healthcare coverage concerns.
I didn't originally support this route but I am not impressed with the direction private insurers have gone as they, like most other large organizations, are more beholden to share holders than the insured.
I'm in favor of a national health plan, but a national health plan won't happen because taxes will have to be raised to fund it. Even if it makes sense in terms of math, and that the tax increase is less than the high premiums people are now paying, it will never fly. Why? Because rich people/wealthy corporations run the country. None of them want higher taxes and they will do everything they can to lower their taxes. Rich people and wealthy corporations don't have to worry about health care. They have cadillac plans and the means to pay for their healthcare out-of-pocket, if necessary.
And the rich certainly don't want anyone else (middle class or lower classes) to have the same healthcare that they do. That's the bottom line. With a national health plan, everyone has the same health care plan. Even if the wealthy were able to buy a "top off" plan to ensure those cadillac benefits (concierge health care, etc), none of them would allow anything resembling a national healthcare plan to pass congress (the wealthy pay off both parties handsomely). There's no way the wealthy elite running this country are going to give up their cadillac health plans through their wealthy corporate employers, or pay higher taxes to support a national health plan.
In 2008, 2009, when Obamacare was just getting started as a discussion, Big Insurance torpedoed the talks right from the get-go. They refused to come to the table to even discuss a more comprehensive healthcare plan available to anyone without employer insurance unless the "medicare for all" option was off the table. If you think that Big Insurance is going away, think again. So, the administration caved to Big Insurance and ended up with an expensive, flawed ACA program, albeit better than nothing, and at least it cleaned up some of the insurance industry's predatory behaviors: denying people coverage with pre-existing conditions.
The insurance industry, IMO, is nothing but fat-cat middle-men, jacking up rates and making a killing. They don't need to be in the picture at all, if there was a national health plan. Taxes would be paid, and everyone would be fully covered, birth to death. Medicare would continue to be the payor to providers.
Last edited by olderandwiser456; 05-04-2019 at 05:18 PM..
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