Health Care Expense as a Percentage of Annual Expenses

[augam]

What percentage of your annual expense is your health care premiums family plan or non - family plan? What are your out of pocket deductibles?

Currently on Cobra and my premiums are (family) 18% of my annual expenses and the potential for 7k family or 3.5k individual.

Hoping to get these costs reduced greatly as my 2 sons are done with school and transitioning to their own HC plans.

 

[Toocold]

Healthcare isn't discretionary IMHO so it's considered a fixed expense. As a result, I don't think it makes sense to compare it to the rest of your expenditures. Similarly, my taxes are multiples of my annual spend, but I keep it separate as there is very little I can influence.

With that said, we're in ACA and pay about 12k in premiums with about 13k in deductibles for a family of 4. If I could pay 7k for my family, I would jump on that.

You may want to see if the exchanges are cheaper. My cobra was double the price of the ones I found in the exchanges.

 

[RetireAge50]

.14% (less than 1%) for ACA premiums. Only other health expenses since retirement has been for dentist.

 

[Dtail]

DGF is on Medical Advantage and I am on an ACA plan.
Our total medical budget is 11% of the total budget. The actual medical expenses in retirement is running at ~9%.
The total deductibles are less than 1k yearly.

 

[Cobra9777]

Our medical expenses are right around 10% of total expenses. About half that is premiums. Other half is OoP, including deductibles, copays, coinsurance, prescriptions, dental, and vision. We both have pre-Medicare retiree coverage with our former employers.

 

[augam]

Back in 85' when I really started saving for retirement I never thought HC would increase as much as it did.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

If my plan holds up $0 next year. This year about 3% Still not bad. I remembered when my mother retired early her health care was 30% of her income. It lasted several years before she turned 65.

 

[meierlde]

Just to compare the Medicare part A premium (if you don't have sufficient contributions) is $458, Part B is around %00 and a medigap would be about 180 depending on location for age 65 Drug plans run about 80 (The part B and part D plans do not include the federal subsidy, so they just give an illustration what buying into medicare might cost if the plans for folks 55-65 to buy in were enacted. Note that this does not include dental, vision, or hearing aids as medicare does not cover these items.

 

[FIREd]

Healthcare premiums are about 4% of annual expenses. Out of pocket costs are negligible.

 

[scrabbler1]

Total medical expenses are about 30% of my total expenses for years 2016-2018. Of that 30%, nearly all of it is from ACA premiums. The rest is from OOP expenses and some dental expenses. In 2019, the medical expenses dropped to 25% despite my premiums rising because I had an income spike from cap gains which spiked my tax bill. For 2020, the ratio will remain at 25% because I changed my portfolio to lower my tax bill which also got me back on the ACA subsidy train, lowering my total expenses. (I treat the ACA subsidy as a reduction in medical expenses, not a tax reduction.)

 

[RobbieB]

About 6%

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

I pay an annul enrollment fee of $400 to cover my family.

$12 co-pays for office visits, and $3 for most drugs.

My health care plan is provided by the US Navy and has been since I retired in 2001 [19 years].

 

[Dash man]

I would estimate our healthcare premiums run about 7-8% of our typical annual expenses. I do itemize our taxes so we get some back.

 

[pb4uski]

5-6% for us.

 

[Fermion]

You would think healthcare would at least rate as high as vacations or something in annual expenses considering how important it is to living.

5% or 10% of annual expenses is nothing.

 

[augam]

I believe you could get into a situation where you have save for many years and not have quite enough to pull the trigger and Fire because of HC costs. My wife and I went back and forth about it for a few years before I ended up pulling the trigger this past June. It still hurts thinking about an expense that twice our mortgage - although it is a small mortgage relative to most of folks we know.

Looking forward to it costing less as the boys transition off our policy here in the next year.

 

[bada bing]

I'm single. If I paid the full cost, my employer/retiree cost would be ~12% of budget ($10K annual premiums + $3000 OoP) for a good HDHP. That cost doubles for married peers. My insurance until medicare in 3 years is employer subsidized, so nothing until I go on Medicare though.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

Single here, 58, retired. Using an ACA plan and subsidy. My overall medical expenses (premiums, copays, deductibles, prescriptions, etc.) are running about 12% of my total expenses.

 

[Big_Hitter]

still in my first year but I budgeted about 15% for all-in medical expenses

 

[USGrant1962]

9.3% for unsub ACA, dental discount plan, VPS, and deductibles. DS#2 is off the payroll since last fall, so that will help a little.

 

[Aerides]

You would think healthcare would at least rate as high as vacations or something in annual expenses considering how [-]important it is to living[/-] much we all complain about it.

fify

premiums about 5%, so actual expenses can push us up to 10 with our HD plans, varies per year depending on what's going on.

 

[pacergal]

about 2% for retiree insurance, will go up significantly when we go on medicare, opposite of what many folks experience, I think.

 

[Whisper66]

I have a mega-corp sponsored retiree medical plan. I pay $7800 premium per year to cover wife and I. Company matches or pays a little more than that to complete the payment. So total maybe ~$15,600+ per year for me and wife. Family yearly deductible = $600, Max yearly out of pocket = $6000. Our yearly living expenses vary a lot but on average, premiums I pay as a % of our expenses ~~ 4.5%.
If I didn't have a good company plan, I would look into Heath Care Sharing plans to get a reasonable cost.... https://www.kitces.com/blog/healthc...hm-medicare-lhs-samaritan-health-share-plans/

 

[donheff]

I have Federal Health insurance and Medicare Part A. Looking at itemized deductions over the years it looks like we average about 10-12% of our income after taxes (which is what we spend) for health expenses. We haven't itemized since 2017 and probably won't absent significant tax law changes. I keep meticulous records of medical bills to make sure we pay only what is required after insurance but I don't total up the sum anymore so for any given year now it's a guess.

 

[Rex]

11% of our annual spend was healthcare.