You did it! You planned for your retirement, put money away for that rainy day, got insurance for the event of your death or worse – if you live past a time anyone wants to care for you. You are ready to travel the open highways in the new mobile home with your best friend. You thought of everything or did you?
Consider a president passing a healthcare law, outlawing current insurance coverage and require the purchase of another policy costing up to seventy-five percent more than the one you currently own? How about a deductible rising from a couple of thousand to ten thousand dollars a year?
Is there prescription coverage if the new insurance does not allow for it? How about a prescribed medication costing $72,000 a month that insurance might not handle? This one medication could wipe out savings in a year or less.
My brother became ill and had no one to help him when illness struck without warning – kidney disease. He had Medicare Part A and nothing more. I moved back home and before he got so severe that insurance would be difficult to find, I managed to get him a backup policy and a prescription policy. He received only one bill for a hospital stay…a very inexpensive hospital stay since he was there a week…of $1800. He did not have the funds, so I paid it. The new insurances took over soon after.
He also received a prescription, like the one mentioned above, that cost $72,000 per month. Without his prescription policy, the cost would have sunk his finances and mine almost immediately. He is now on dialysis, another expensive proposition, which insurance covers.
Another relative once made a quarter of a million dollars a year. He bought everything, except health insurance. When he contracted terminal sarcoidosis, it was too late, regardless of promises of the Affordable Care Act. He found no insurance company willing to take him on.
My brother bragged he had not seen a doctor in thirty years and was perfectly healthy. A year and a half ago he was walking four miles a day, had lost thirty-five pounds and looked great when I saw him in October. By December his legs, arms, abdomen and face were bloated from fluid retention due to kidney disease. Would getting an annual physical have prevented the disease or at least held it off? He will never know. He saw no reason to pay doctors to tell him he was healthy. What would it have been worth to be warned all was not well?
He also never put money into things like a retirement account, figuring he would work as a florist until the day he died. The shop is closed. His income is gone. He has nothing to fall back on except Social Security – a program that may go broke during his lifetime.
No matter what dreams a person holds for those golden years, a serious consideration must be given to healthcare, disability and life insurance. Get them now. With good coverage, should you become disabled or die, every possibility will be covered.