These ridiculously high medical costs begs the question whether government funded medical benefits, much like the systems used throughout Europe, may prove to be more beneficial in the long run. As the economy continues to recover from the recession, it seems that retirees have to add medical bills to their list of necessities required to survive. It will be interesting to see how mortality rates may possibly increase with such high costs of living.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Your retiree medical bill: $197,000
Many insurance companies have estimated that individuals will require at least $197,000 to cover all of their out-of-pocket medical bills during their retirement. Some have predicted this number to be even higher and the average deduct of pay for Social Security benefits is around $110.50 monthly for Medicare plan B.
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2 comments:
I think that this is an interesting article especially to talk about in an economic systems class. In a market system like that of the U.S. prices are set by demand and supply. In this case, innovation in medicine has made it possible to cure or treat a lot of diseases and illnesses that otherwise would go untreated. Increases in the demand for medical procedures and the difficulty of the procedures will lead to higher costs associated for the patients. Something will have to be done in the coming years.
I agree that something will need to be done. It is interesting to see that although there is so much innovation in the medical field and high demand, that prices continue to stay so high. I would expect prices to stay high for a brand new treatment that just came out but I would eventually think that the price would go down and that is just not the case with medical procedures. I also wonder if maybe these procedures could be cheaper but prices do not go down because people will pay the higher cost since it is usually a matter of having the disease or not or even life or death. This idea is similar to the huge price difference between generic medicines and name brands.
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