Health insurance eats up retirement savings
I’d like to share a troubling situation that my family is currently dealing with, and I don’t believe we are alone in this. Last year, we had health insurance through my husband’s company, and for the two of us, the premium was $1,082.88. This year we signed up for an individual plan with the same insurance company and “benefits” as last year and our premium is $1,365.30. Please note that our individual deductibles are $7,000 each for the year. He is 62 and I am 56, and retirement looms in our future.
My father, who is of sound mind and body, still lives alone, drives at the age of 93 and receives $1,209 per month from Social Security. His Social Security payments slightly increased this year due to a “cost-of-living” raise, but the difference between that and the rise in cost for Medicare and Medicare supplemental insurance gave him an increase of exactly one dollar. If he did not have investments following retirement, this amount would be all he would have to live on. The disparity between these two hardships is staggering.
My husband and I are each selfemployed and have completely selffunded our IRA, SEP and savings. That means that over the past 20 years, we have personally paid the full 12.4 percent of our paychecks to Social Security as well as 2.9 percent to Medicare, whereas most people employed by a company pay 6.2 percent to Social Security and their employer covers the difference as well as 1.45 percent of Medicare.
The only fortunate thing for me is that our current insurance pays for any counseling sessions with no limit to the number of visits, and I am taking full advantage of that in order to deal with all of the problems we face in this great country and city of ours, including wage disparity, the upheaval of our health care system, taxes, violence/criminal acts, corrupt politicians, the ART project, increasing traffic due to all of the building of new apartments and residential homes in my neighborhood, an increase in our property taxes, problems with UNM Athletics, the University of New Mexico itself and APS. Lastly, I will have to close my business in the near future because technology has taken over the entire field I am in. I realize many employed and jobless people are having to deal with their own financial issues.
What is a person to do? So much of our lives these days are out of our control and we feel powerless to make any changes, which leaves us frustrated and angry. I don’t have the answer, but sharing my personal life as it is these days will probably speak to a number of people reading this.