The Cost of Healthcare in Retirement

Retirement is a wonderful time! Many use their retirement years to spend more time with loved ones, travel the world, explore new hobbies, or to simply just relax (you’ve earned it). However, with these new opportunities comes new challenges as well. Planning for health care in retirement is becoming an increasingly complex issue as costs are rising, people are living longer, and long-term care is becoming more prevalent. Out-of-pocket healthcare estimates for a 65-year-old couple can reach $259,000-$395,000 over 20 years in retirement.¹ The cost of healthcare will be one of your largest retirement expenses but we feel it is too often overlooked in financial planning.

Medicare

Even though you may have paid into Medicare for years, there are still out-of-pocket expenses involved with the program. Medicare covers around 62% of retirees’ total healthcare expenses, therefore, once eligible at age 65, the decisions you make on Medicare have a significant impact on your financial plan throughout retirement.² We will have more detailed information about Medicare in upcoming Virtus Views.

Long-Term Care

A person at age 65 has a 70% chance of needing some type of long-term care during retirement.³ This can be in a nursing home, home health care, or assisted living facilities and the cost of any of those can devastate a financial plan if you do not consider these things ahead of time. Medicare and most retiree health insurance benefits will not pay for long-term care, resulting in a majority of the burden being placed on individuals to fund this ever-increasing expense.

Even though planning for healthcare cost in retirement can be difficult and depressing, it is necessary. Here at V&E Wealth Management our passion is financial education. We like to work with people to develop long-term financial plans that include personalized health care cost analysis to help make sure you can focus on enjoying your retirement and not paying for it.

¹Savings needed for Medigap premiums, Medicare Part B premiums, Medicare part D premiums and out-of-pocket drug expense for retirement at age 65 in 2015, assuming a 90% chance of having enough savings: “Amount of Savings Needed for Health Expenses for People Eligible for Medicare: Unlike the Last Few Years, the News is Not Good,” by Paul Fronstin, Dallas Salisbury, and Jack VanDerhei, EBRI. October 2015.

² “How Much Is Enough? Out-of-Pocket Spending Among Medicare Beneficiaries: A Chartbook,” Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (July 2014).

³ “Medicare & You 2016,” Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services.