Sorry -- not really sure which sub-forum this belongs in: FIRE? Health? Where to live?
Finally I am free to go wherever I want: FIRE'd at the end of 2012, five years of eldercare done, estates closed. Finally footloose! (And currently on a 3-month flash packing trip in Asia...)
Age 59, solo, no dependents. No retirement health care benefit, so for the past four years I have been buying an individual plan, (one year on exchange, three years off-exchange)
As a native New Mexican my plan has been to return to northern NM, but when I look at the health insurance options for the Santa Fe area I am flummoxed. I will travel a lot -- at least six months per year on the road, much outside the US. I have no health issues and last had a prescription (other than anti-malaria) more than a decade ago. An HMO with a very limited network does me little good.
So how do I proceed? Move to NM and spend several hundred dollars a month on insurance that does me little good? Buy the least expensive HSA eligible policy I can, and then plan to self-insure for just about anything that happens when I am away from my "home" county? (That is what I currently do)
Or move to another state -- in which I have no interest in spending time -- because the health insurance offerings are not dreadful?
All the other financial pieces fall into place as planned for an ER move home to northern NM -- except that I really do not know what to do about health insurance.
I suspect potential ER's to Arizona have similar issues. Ditto for Colorado.
Advice on how to proceed -- or even how to *think* about this problem in a bigger FIRE and financial planning context-- would be gratefully received. I have hit analysis-paralysis.
(And apologies in advance for being slow in following this thread -- in SE Asia I have both time zone and Internet accessibility challenges!)
Thank you!
Finally I am free to go wherever I want: FIRE'd at the end of 2012, five years of eldercare done, estates closed. Finally footloose! (And currently on a 3-month flash packing trip in Asia...)
Age 59, solo, no dependents. No retirement health care benefit, so for the past four years I have been buying an individual plan, (one year on exchange, three years off-exchange)
As a native New Mexican my plan has been to return to northern NM, but when I look at the health insurance options for the Santa Fe area I am flummoxed. I will travel a lot -- at least six months per year on the road, much outside the US. I have no health issues and last had a prescription (other than anti-malaria) more than a decade ago. An HMO with a very limited network does me little good.
So how do I proceed? Move to NM and spend several hundred dollars a month on insurance that does me little good? Buy the least expensive HSA eligible policy I can, and then plan to self-insure for just about anything that happens when I am away from my "home" county? (That is what I currently do)
Or move to another state -- in which I have no interest in spending time -- because the health insurance offerings are not dreadful?
All the other financial pieces fall into place as planned for an ER move home to northern NM -- except that I really do not know what to do about health insurance.
I suspect potential ER's to Arizona have similar issues. Ditto for Colorado.
Advice on how to proceed -- or even how to *think* about this problem in a bigger FIRE and financial planning context-- would be gratefully received. I have hit analysis-paralysis.
(And apologies in advance for being slow in following this thread -- in SE Asia I have both time zone and Internet accessibility challenges!)
Thank you!