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According to a paper by Robert Lawless, a law professor at the University of Illinois, and three colleagues:
The percentage of Americans declaring bankruptcy age 55 to 64 has risen 66% from 1991 to 2016
The percentage declaring bankruptcy age 65 to 74 increased 204% from 1991 to 2016
Roughly 12% of bankruptcy filers are now 65 and older, up from about 2% in 1991
From the time I was married I never went one second without health insurance for the entire family and I will admit that at times paying the premium took a good bite of my wallet.
But with Medicare, and assuming some supplements, how does someone over 65 go bankrupt over medical bills?
I se a lot of retirement-related posts in my FB feed and the comments are always an education. Many fall into the trap of "saving money" by not signing up for Medicare B or a supplement or a Drug plan. The supplement (needed if you don't have Medicare Advantage) pays the 20% of non-hospital costs that Medicare B doesn't pay. And, if you're gambling on not buying a prescription plan, not only can you get hit badly if you suddenly need an expensive prescription but you will pay a surcharge on premiums the rest of your life when you do sign up. Same with Medicare B. This is to keep people from gaming the system by waiting to purchase coverage til they need it- same reason you can't buy windstorm coverage when the hurricane warnings have been posted. (An exception is if you had "creditable coverage" through an employer between age 65 and when you filed for Medicare.)
And then there are dental, eye care and hearing aid expenses. You get some coverage form some Medicare Advantage programs but not regular Medicare.
The age groups in that study include only the Baby Boomers. Being a mid-cycle Baby Boomer myself, I feel our parents had a unique advantage for their retirement years - the proverbial three legged stool of Pension, Social Security, and Personal Savings. I also feel that too many of us Baby Boomers did not realize the financial security our parents had, falsely 'assumed' we would have the same security in our retirement years with no effort, and never did any active planning to ensure we would have financial security.
My parents passed in '94 and '98 without ever owning a Cell Phone, never having Internet, never having Cable TV. Those three items alone can add $300 per month to the typical retiree's current budget. $300/month that our parents never had to include in their retirement budgets. Add in poor planning for future Health Care Expenses and the puzzle is solved.
The age groups in that study include only the Baby Boomers. Being a mid-cycle Baby Boomer myself, I feel our parents had a unique advantage for their retirement years - the proverbial three legged stool of Pension, Social Security, and Personal Savings. I also feel that too many of us Baby Boomers did not realize the financial security our parents had, falsely 'assumed' we would have the same security in our retirement years with no effort, and never did any active planning to ensure we would have financial security.
My parents passed in '94 and '98 without ever owning a Cell Phone, never having Internet, never having Cable TV. Those three items alone can add $300 per month to the typical retiree's current budget. $300/month that our parents never had to include in their retirement budgets. Add in poor planning for future Health Care Expenses and the puzzle is solved.
That's a myth. At the height of covered pensions only 46% of the workers were covered in the private sector.
https://retirementlc.com/golden-age-...er-fairy-tale/
According to the Employee Benefits Research Institute, the high-water mark of defined benefit plan coverage in the private sector probably occurred in 1980 when nearly 35 million workers were covered by defined benefit pension plans. This represented 46 percent of the private sector workforce.
Last edited by TMSRetired; 11-04-2019 at 01:45 PM..
Just did a little research and it seems the same thing is happening here. The figure I saw was for people over sixty, and they constitute 14% of bankrupts, double the percentage of twenty years ago.
But the reasons are somewhat different, keeping in mind that we have universal basic medical coverage . It seems it is overwhelmingly blamed on credit card debt, as well as a lack of home ownership and an underlying lack of financial assets. i imagine the credit cards are being used for a whole range of things but I know when we recently had an emergency plumbing bill of over $5,000 I did wonder how some people would manage that.
From the time I was married I never went one second without health insurance for the entire family and I will admit that at times paying the premium took a good bite of my wallet.
But with Medicare, and assuming some supplements, how does someone over 65 go bankrupt over medical bills?
Medicare covers many strictly medical bills. But . . .
It does't cover so well newer, non-generic drugs which can run as high as thousand(s) per month. Nor does it pay for in-home aftercare or any sort of nursing home or assisted living, which many older people need after they have some medical emergency.
Until the day when there are no parasites between the patient and the physician, medical costs will be higher than need be.
The patient pays for the malpractice premiums, insurance premiums, hordes of data entry clerks, administrative overhead, bloat, waste, taxes, inflation, and whatever other items get tucked under the covers.
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