If you’re planning on early retirement, especially before age 65, you’ll need to consider health insurance options. Individuals who retire before 65 years of age are still too young to get the benefits of Medicare, but it’s important to have health insurance to cover unexpected health conditions, prescription drug costs, regular checkups, or any hospitalizations. Fortunately, there are some health insurance options available for early retirees. Unfortunately, it’s often quite expensive. In my mind, that’s probably the biggest downside of…
Category: Medicare
I’m Not Making This Mistake Again
A couple weeks ago the girlfriend and I took a little vacation to Vegas to see the city and take a break from everything. One day we went to the Mob Museum and saw some of the gangsters that were later made famous by Martin Scorsese in Casino and Goodfellas (I highly recommend watching both). After that we were looking for something for dinner, and I made a big mistake: I let her have full control over the restaurant selection….
How Much Will Medicare Cost?
Healthcare is a major expense in retirement and while Medicare is a federally run program (via payroll taxes), it is not free. Before you head into retirement, it’s important to understand how much it’ll cost you. According to the most recent studies by Fidelity, after age 65, you can expect to spend approximately $5,000 per person for your medical expenses. In today’s episode, I want to break down some of those costs. Because Medicare is a multi-part system, the easiest…
Top 3 Common Medicare Mistakes to Avoid
Medicare is designed to help you manage your healthcare costs in retirement. Most individuals can get a significant portion of their healthcare costs covered by Medicare. However, the process of applying to Medicare to get the benefits you need can be a bit complicated and mistakes can wind up being quite costly. It is important that you understand what Medicare has to offer so you can minimize out-of-pocket costs and keep your premiums low. Here are the top 3 common…
3 Key Things to Know About Medicare
We’ve all heard about Medicare and have a general understanding that it goes hand-in-hand with retirement. If you’re on the journey of figuring it all out, it’s best to start at the basics. When you are working, your health insurance is often provided by your employer. Once you retire you need to get your own health insurance and to help with this there is Medicare. Medicare is a federal health insurance program for individuals 65+ and younger people with disabilities….
What’s The Difference Between Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement
A common misconception when it comes to Medicare is that once you sign up, you get all the health care coverage you need. While Original Medicare (Part A and Part B) covers hospitalizations and doctor visits, for many, there are still significant gaps in coverage, which is why there are products like Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement. To pick the right plan for you, you must first understand the difference between Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement. Here’s what you need…
Help! How Do I Enroll In Medicare Advantage?
I was recently asked about the process of enrolling in Medicare Advantage and I thought I’d take the time to write a quick post to help clarify the process. Many of the sites that explain the program make it out to be more complicated than it actually is. Here’s what you need to know. What is Medicare Advantage? A Medicare Advantage plan is essentially a Medicare health plan offered by Medicare-approved private companies. These health plans combine Medicare Part A…
Are You Getting Your “Fair Share”?
There seems to be a growing number of politicians these days who think that us taxpayers haven’t “paid our fair share” of taxes…. They think that the people paying federal income taxes, state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes (and more), for decades, simply aren’t contributing enough to our government. Frankly, I think that’s wrong. If anything, I don’t think taxpayers are receiving enough benefits for forking over so much in taxes. But that’s just me…feel free to disagree. If…