10yrs to retirement, how to think about healthcare

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I meant on a personal level, making the personal choice to not participate in employer insurance.

If you work for a large company there isn't an option to opt out and get more money. And honestly for a big company it's rather cheap for them to provide insurance for you.

[MonkeyMama]

What do you pay now for medical for 4? What do you think you will spend for 2? I don't think 50-55 is the expensive age. i think it's 60-65 age that is prohibitively expensive. I also wonder since you do have pre-exisiting conditions that will impact the costs? What do you plan on budgeting for medical after age 50?

I suppose it depends how you define prohibitively expensive. My original point was I need to work 8 hours per week to cover healthcare. I don't have to work full-time age 65 to cover healthcare.

& of course, we have had substantial tax breaks to help pay for the medical care. It's socially acceptable to pay absurd sums for debt, mortgage, daycare, college, income taxes, etc. We just have different financial priorities.

To answer your question, healthcare is about 1/3 of our spending during working years and we are planning that it may be 1/2 of our spending during retirement years. While medical will most likely stay as our biggest expense (same as during working years), all of our other large expenses should disappear in retirement. We could also very easily pay more in the realm of -$0- with ACA. A lot of unknowns. The #s are very rough for such long range planning, which is why I share very rough #s.

[Fishindude77]

I thinks todays health insurance market for private insurance under the ACA program is pretty much worse case scenario, assuming you earn enough where you are ineligible for discounts.
Hard telling where things are going to be in ten years, but it you plan on paying for it at todays rates plus some time / inflation factor, you should have enough.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I suppose it depends how you define prohibitively expensive. My original point was I need to work 8 hours per week to cover healthcare. I don't have to work full-time age 65 to cover healthcare.

& of course, we have had substantial tax breaks to help pay for the medical care. It's socially acceptable to pay absurd sums for debt, mortgage, daycare, college, income taxes, etc. We just have different financial priorities.

To answer your question, healthcare is about 1/3 of our spending during working years and we are planning that it may be 1/2 of our spending during retirement years. While medical will most likely stay as our biggest expense (same as during working years), all of our other large expenses should disappear in retirement. We could also very easily pay more in the realm of -$0- with ACA. A lot of unknowns. The #s are very rough for such long range planning, which is why I share very rough #s.

MM what is the price you pay now? How much annually do you spend on health insurance?

[MonkeyMama]

MM what is the price you pay now? How much annually do you spend on health insurance?

We paid $15K for insurance last year, and usually max out our $3K deductible. $18K total medical cost in 2020. (The insurance # alone is useless without the context of deductible).

Or I guess I should say that it is a Gold plan (or Gold plan equivalent). We started out on a more platinum type plan and kept it as long as we could afford it. Which was probably smart when insurance was much cheaper (2000) and when we were having babies and everything (lots of Doctor appointments in those days). I am happy enough with Gold plan. No crazy surprises and has kept insurance affordable for us.

Edited to add: I am guessing this is extremely irrelevant to your personal situation. Different age, state, everything. Which is somewhat I why I didn't dive into detailed #s when you first asked.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

We paid $15K for insurance last year, and usually max out our $3K deductible. $18K total medical cost in 2020. (The insurance # alone is useless without the context of deductible).

Or I guess I should say that it is a Gold plan (or Gold plan equivalent). We started out on a more platinum type plan and kept it as long as we could afford it. Which was probably smart when insurance was much cheaper (2000) and when we were having babies and everything (lots of Doctor appointments in those days). I am happy enough with Gold plan. No crazy surprises and has kept insurance affordable for us.

Edited to add: I am guessing this is extremely irrelevant to your personal situation. Different age, state, everything. Which is somewhat I why I didn't dive into detailed #s when you first asked.

No i think it's a baseline. $18k seems like a good deal. I did a search it would be $1323/month for our family of four but $10k maximum but $1000 deductible. I think if I estimated $2k/month that would put us at $24k/year.