Cost of Health Insurance?

[Shabber2]

I am 40 and should be retiring in the next 1-3 years depending how long I choose to sell my soul for. Anyway, wife works at Microsoft so her benefits cover me. Just wondering what health benefits would cost if that was not the case? Also assuming they go up over time, what is a proper budget amount? My gut says now it is $200 a month andrising to $500 a month in my 60's?

[newguy88]

Originally Posted by Shabber2

I am 40 and should be retiring in the next 1-3 years depending how long I choose to sell my soul for. Anyway, wife works at Microsoft so her benefits cover me. Just wondering what health benefits would cost if that was not the case? Also assuming they go up over time, what is a proper budget amount? My gut says now it is $200 a month andrising to $500 a month in my 60's?

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Take a look at this policy.

Link is wrong anyway it was an aetna plan with a 2,500 deductable and 20% co insurance for 502 a month.

[retire@40]

There are all different kinds of health plans out there with various deductibles, co-pays, with Rx, without Rx, etc.

A family plan would probably run you 3 to 4 times what your gut is telling you. An individual plan would probably be closer to double your estimate.

Health insurance has its own inflation rate. I've been estimating mine at 10% and that was low last year to the actual 15% increase I got on my premium.

[Martha]

If you do a search, I think Sam recently began a thread where people posted how much they were spending on health insurance as retirees. A lot of variability as cost depends on your age, health, and state you live in.

[FinanceGeek]

Start with Health Insurance Consumer Guides to see what legal rights you have in your state. This will tell you a lot about the underlying market and enable further investigation. After spending some time on this site you may even decide to consider relocation to another state.

To retire at 40, even with what I suspect / hope are substantial MSFT stock gains past and future, will require a substantial funding level to meet health insurance needs even if your present health is good.

[Shabber2]

OK, I will so some more research, but looks like it will be a bigger cost than I suspected. So budgeting, I should put in $400 a month for just me and rise it 12% a year?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

If you want pretty full coverage, that sounds about right.

If you're healthy and live a healthy lifestyle, and just want 'disaster' coverage, you might get away with half that much.

[meridiver]

I'm 45 (DH is 42). We are currently looking into coverage since ours is through my job and I'm thinking about RE sometime in the next year. From the cursory search I've done, in our state (CA) it looks like we can get a catastrophic plan (with around a 3-5K deductible, 7-10K out of pocket limits and some drug coverage) for around $300-400/mo. for both of us so that's what I'm building into our budget. For full coverage and low deductibles, we'd be paying $600-800+/mo. Since we are both healthy, with no history of illness and relatively good family histories, we are willing to self-insure for the "normal" stuff and go with a catastrophic plan as backup just in case.

[newguy88]

Originally Posted by meridiver

I'm 45 (DH is 42). We are currently looking into coverage since ours is through my job and I'm thinking about RE sometime in the next year. From the cursory search I've done, in our state (CA) it looks like we can get a catastrophic plan (with around a 3-5K deductible, 7-10K out of pocket limits and some drug coverage) for around $300-400/mo. for both of us so that's what I'm building into our budget. For full coverage and low deductibles, we'd be paying $600-800+/mo. Since we are both healthy, with no history of illness and relatively good family histories, we are willing to self-insure for the "normal" stuff and go with a catastrophic plan as backup just in case.

Think about these numbers, man they are crazy. 700 a month X 12 is almost 10K add the deductable and you are at 12K a year just for medical insurance. Then if you get sick the fighting you will have with the insurance company.

Wondaful.