To get back to the original post... I retired at 57, I'm now 59. I always lived within my means, had little or no credit card debt, had tons of equity in my house, contributed the max to my 401K and had a healthy savings account. What a good girl I was!
Well guess what happened? My investments lost 25% before I felt forced to pull out of the stock market, my house value went down about 18% and I couldn't sell it. Will I be able to collect Social Security in three years? Don"t know - it may be out of money by then. My pension? I worked in the newspaper industry which is dying. Don't know if my pension will be there in 3 years. Medicare in 6 years? Rumor has it it will be broke in 5 years. I have no health insurance either.
But I'm still one of the lucky ones because I still have what's left of my investments even though they're not earning the way they're supposed to. I still own a home and still have pretty good equity in it.
My point is that I did EVERYTHING right - according to the "experts", and I still lost a huge amount of my financial security. But because I did everything right, I am in better shape than so many, so I count my blessings and try to focus on what I do have, not what I lost. I don't know what I can do about the health insurance though. Not many options on my budget.
It does no good to chortle over the folks who made some poor decisions and find themselves in a terrible bind now. They were, in many cases, sold a bill of goods, just like I was. In their case, as in mine, it was the "experts" that led us down this path. I'm done with the "professionals". They don't really know anything more than I do. It's all a big gamble.