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Insurance is another factor. Medicare doesn't generally cover overseas doctors, and many private policies only cover emergency treatment outside their state. It is mostly the uninsured middle class who would be interested in tourism. They often get charged fantastic prices. The poor get free...

I can't imagine a CD keeping up with medical inflation. Maybe Vanguard's health care mutual fund, or some such (no guarantees with such funds). The Fidelity estimates of money needed for medicine are quite a bit higher than a few years ago. The amount estimated a few years ago, put in a CD...

Okay, in general essentials are going up fast, and non essentials are going up slowly. If you are a LBYM type person, your CPI may be higher than the official one. If you are a prodigious spender, your CPI may be lower than the official one. Most Americans are prodigious spenders, so the...

I never understood how anyone could think that more transistors per square inch of silicon requires increasing the price of food to compensate.

Before the 60s and 70s, Congress made occasional adjustments for inflation/wages. In 1972, benefits were automatically indexed to inflation. The 4 Historical Misunderstandings About Social Security Since it took one wage earner to support a family in the past, and two now, it is very possible...

On January 31, 1940 Ida May Fuller received the first Social Security check of $22.54 (a month). Using the CPI to adjust it to today's money, it would be $335.67 Most of the CPI adjust was for years before Boskin, yet who could live on that kind of money today?

Using pre 1980 methods, inflation would be calculated at approx 10%. Using pre early 90s methods, inflation would be calculated about 6%. Detroit was forced to lease cars instead of selling them because most people couldn't afford to buy them any longer, but the improvements have actually made...

The 10 year annualized return of VGHCX is 14.63% That would have come pretty close to keeping up with past medical insurance inflation, but future return numbers are not available yet.

Thanks Martha. I guess seeing the 15% and 18% increases retire@40 reported made me a bit too pessimistic.

My attempt to sum up recent discussions. To be safe prospective ERs should set aside a bit less than 1M per person for medical expenses, and anything over that can be used to live on. Much less than that, and insurance will be such a large percentage of the budget that annual increases in the...

Okay, I see the difference. That seems to be the way poll leader Hillary is trending. Open up the federal programs to everyone, and mandate that everyone buy coverage if they don't already have it.

So the general consensus seems to be that there is no realistic way to reform the US system so as to make medicine that is affordable to the middle class available here. The only options being left open to the middle class are to go overseas, or support national health care. I'll have to give...

Thanks Rich. I will give some thought to the system, and to the accrediting issues mentioned in the article.

According to the article, 500,000 Americans went overseas for treatment last year, and the number is rapidly rising. Why not just let foreign hospitals set up branches here, and staff them with foreign trained staff? Demand for a their less expensive product obviously exists. If Toyota can...

Hillary wants to open up Medicare to all. Medicare part A costs $410/mo. now for those who pay for it themselves. Part B is another $93.50/mo. The prescription program would add about another $25/mo. I wonder if $500/mo is about what people would be charged under Hillary's plan. Medicare Web Site

Interesting. This sounds more like a regulated monopoly than a free market. In a free market, competition keeps costs down and quality high. In regulated monopolies, gov grants the monopoly (license?), then determines a fair price for a product since there is no competition to keep costs...

I moved into a new bracket in one of the years, but the others are inflation. You are correct that the free market model is incapable of providing free or below cost services. The only way a free market competition model could provide service to the poor would be something similar to the food...

All I know is that the CPI goes up every single year, despite Wal Mart. Consumers save nothing if prices overall are rising.

Mine went up 17% 3 years in a row, and 20% last year. I must be doing something wrong.

This article suggests free markets lead to cheap prices, and central planning via regulations lead to high prices: Health Care Blog Can free markets work with health care?

Health insurance rate of increase is way beyond the CPI, making it difficult to know how much to plan for.

Never mind.

I thank you all for your advice. I will ponder what to do.

My father wants to reinstall his Windows ME operating system due to bad files, but his computer will not boot from the manufacturer's CD ROM reinstall disk. His setup screen shows that the CD is set to boot before C: It is a replacement CD ROM drive, and can be accessed through the "my computer"...

Don't worry about the MRI. All you have to do is stay still, and listen to the music of your choice. I found it very relaxing. No pain at all.