Guess I'm one of the lucky ones. My former employer has a retiree medical plan. They are not legally obligated to continue offering the coverage and that fact causes me a bit of consternation every time I get an envelope from the plan. More so after reading what some of you are paying. So far since retiring at 61, I really haven't paid much of anything for my health care. When I turned 65 and started Medicare, which meant my employers plan would not pay as much, I began paying about $100 a month. Go figure. Not complaining, but the paper work probably costs more.
After Obamacare, they began using a third party administrator for claims. I guess they couldn't figure out which end was up with the Affordable Care Act. While I still don't pay a premium, my deductibles and co-pays have gone way up. So from my perspective the Affordable Care Act may not be so Affordable if I have to use it. I have Kaiser. The DW is also covered by Kaiser. Her cost last year $58.00 a month. This year it's $0. Not sure what's going on.
Fortunately I've had good health and other than for vision and dental have probably not paid $1,000 in co-pays and deductibles over the past 12 years. Still I have a stroke risk and cancer runs in the family. My father at died of lung cancer at 58, one sister with colon cancer at 76, my brother of lung cancer 3 months ago at 74. For me, the worst was 5 years ago when one of my daughters was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer at age 41. A year later my oldest daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer. Today the oldest seems to be cancer free. The youngest, has been through 3 rounds of chemo and while she seems to be doing OK, I get nervous every time she calls. All I can say is nothing takes the wind out of the sails faster than a child with a serious illness.
