[quote=flu]I have to warn you folks $5million might seem like a lot of money now. But wait until you have a serious medical condition and have issues with insurance.
Insurance has two major benefits
1. Copaying your medical cost. You pay premiums, they pick up the rest of the cost minus deductible.
2. (More importantly). They negotiate rates with providers…
#2 is the major major thing about insurance that makes a huge difference, much more so than #1.
If you aren’t insurable you’ll have no real negotiation powers with the providers. You’re at the mercy of the provider’s goodwill…And usually they determine how much you pay based on your financial situation. In short if you’ll planned well plan on paying close to retail until you have no money…And then maybe, just maybe you’ll get a goodwill break…
Don’t count on medicare being there to save you or obamacare to save you, especially if you’re young…
To put thing in perspective for how much this can be…
Each time I go for 2 hours of chemo infusion, the retail price at a non-profit hospital is around
$12,000. After insurance negotiated price, the cost is closer to $4400…Yup that’s right almost 1/3 the cost. Of which insurance pays 80% and I pay 20%…
Let’s just play the game that you have no medicare and obamacare when you’re retiring (because the government is broke) worst case scenario.
With insurance, even if I needed to pay the entire cost..It would only be about $114k…Which I personally wouldn’t have as much of an issue doing….Without insurance negotiated rates. $312k/year…
Realistically, you probably can find some coverage and some help, so probably somewhere between in between is more likely. But if that’s the case, you better make sure your $5million+ nest egg is there before you retire, and you better make sure it’s earning 2%+ at retirement the moment you have some health issues that is longer term. Otherwise, frankly for everyone’s else sanity, you’re better off dead….
Which brings me to corollary #2….
How much is is really worth to stay alive when you’re old? Again, another personal decision. Because if you don’t want to bend over with medical expenses in the future at the same time living out of a feeder tube, there are some hard choices that you can make right now and decide when enough is enough…And more importantly… don’t be so goddamn uptight about being a miser today and penny pinching today..Enjoy life a bit for christ sake today, because you really might not be able to 10/20/30 years from now…Work/save, get hit by a bus or random act of god, surprise you’re dead (or better off dead), and your nest egg you worked so hard to goes to your kid at best (and at worst goes back to the government and redistributed)…Personally, I think I’ll be happy making to 65 without an unduly financial expense. So that’s my target. Beyond which, I don’t give a crap.[/quote]
Shockingly true on every point, flu. Great post. I’d like to add that I fully believe in “living along the way” as well–that’s what we’ve always done. Waiting to live life to the max for a retirement that may never materialize would be sad.
