Soaring Health Care Costs Jeopardize Retirement In America
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
"At the core of the problem is the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs–the number one biggest threats to retirement solvency."
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...A recent study by Gallup entitled “The US Healthcare Cost Crisis” found that seniors last year withdrew an estimated $22 billion from their long-term savings for health-related expenses.
The report also found that some 10 percent of Americans aged 65 and older did not seek needed treatment in the past 12 months because of the cost of care.
And the future seem to be just as grim, if not worse.
A study by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis finds that about 40% of middle-class Americans will live close to or in poverty by the time they reach retirement age.
On a rare positive note, older workers are not only growing rapidly in numbers, but are also becoming substantially healthier and no longer feel that the traditional retirement age is an expiration date.
Of Americans aged 65 or older and working or looking for work, 78 percent report being in good health or better, up from 73 percent in 1997 and 69 percent in 1985. And since manufacturing jobs are being overtaken more frequently by desk jobs or jobs that require less physical activity, age isn’t quite the barrier to employment that it used to be.
Economists have also found that retiring at age 66, instead of 62, can raise a retiree’s standard of living by one-third.
Employers aren’t complaining because the elderly workers are better educated and more experienced in many cases than their younger colleagues. The share of all employees aged 65 or older with at least an undergraduate degree is now 53 percent, up from 25 percent in 1985. This pushed up the average real income of retirement-age workers by 63 percent during this time period, from $48,000 to $78,000.
But the heart of the matter is that eternal American bogeyman of healthcare: The system is broken to the point that retirement is increasingly elusive and many are hoping that it will crack soon–and preferably before Baby Boomers end up workers as Walmart greeters just to survive.
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Some want retirement age folks to work until they drop. For example, the pharmaceutical companies .
Dear Friend John Russell: Agreed.At long last, have they no sense of shame?
It would appear not.
P&AB.
Enoch.
Many folks like to work as long as they want to, as they are living longer and are more healthier than in previous generations.
Do you have reliable sources about the pharmaceutical companies to "drop dead"? It would seem they would like to see them stay alive to keep taking drugs.
It seems that the situation got much worse when ACA went to effect.
No. "The situation" as you deem it was why the ACA was necessary. Unfortunately, the GOP made the necessary unreliable, costly, inefficient and a tool for propaganda.
"At the core of the problem is the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs"
Besides the Bernie idea of just getting rid of ALL Private insurance companies, and just raising taxes for ALL, to supplement his promise of "Free" …… What is being Proposed to ACTUALLY reduce health and Drug costs again ?
Americans have a huge problem with obesity and being in poor physical condition. One should expect their healthcare cost to be high.
Healthcare costs will always be extremely high as long as healthcare remains a profit oriented commodity. Instead of what it is.
As far as 'naked capitalism.' Capitalism is dead. Murdered by Supply Side Economics and therein is the root of the problem.
I think one major factor in our health care costs that seems to rarely get discussed is tort reform. You can go get a surgery in South America for one hundredth the cost. One of the main reasons? Accountability. Now, no one here in the US wants to reduce accountability to zero like it is in some countries, where no matter how bad a doctor botches a surgery he can't really be sued, but there has to be some middle ground between that and allowing us here to sue for millions even billions. Our health care industry has to shoulder that burden in increased insurance costs which of course get passed on down to you in the inflated cost of health care services. If a nurse giving a patient a 2 cent ibuprofen could potentially cost the hospital millions in a lawsuit if the person has an adverse reaction, then that 2 cent knock-off advil now costs $15 a pill.
So capping potential malpractice lawsuits seems to me to be the only sensible thing to do which maintains some accountability but takes away the "sky's the limit" mentality every vulture lawyer has when they get a potential victim of someone with what they see as "deep pockets" aka the high limit liability insurance every doctor and hospital has to carry in order to operate.
One possible compromise would be to allow at least local urgent care or small clinics to have capped lawsuits so they can offer health services to low and middle income Americans without having to pay exorbitant insurance costs. And if you're using one of those clinics you'd be notified and have to sign a waver acknowledging that you will not be able to sue for more than "$XXX" amount, but all the health services were half the cost of a regular hospital or doctor paying the higher insurance premiums but where you'd have more financial accountability.
Maybe.....Just Maybe..... LOSER ALWAYS PAYS Finality would be better at curtailing Frivolous Lawsuit types ?