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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Apropos of nothing, health care before age 65 in the US (prior to the ACA, and possibly again) peaked at about $36K/year (age 64). That leaves you with $24K of your $60K to live on. Not saying it isn't doable, but it isn't as much as it once was.

All I'm saying is that retirement planning is a bit weird because if you do it when you're 20 you might miss some expenses that older people have that you are not yet aware of :-)

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Healthcare in Estonia is provided to you by your employer (which is required by law, so every employer will have to pay the healthcare tax on your behalf) which will include everything you would need from healthcare. Once you reach the age of retirement, healthcare is free. In fact if you don't have a job, and I've been jobless, then it has cost me only 5 euros (a fixed fee at the registration) in a hospital to get fixed up (broken leg, broken toe, infections ..)

I'm more and more convinced that U.S simply hates its people.

peaked at about $36K/year

So leave USA for a while or forever, if you need to pay $3000 a MONTH for insurance. WTF?

Unless you have a very, very specific disease everything will be solved in many other countries, at a lot less. By paying cash if needed.

Its one of the options that people talk about, in particular moving to Canada. My in-laws moved to Brazil not only for lower health care costs but it was less expensive to hire in home care giving staff.

That makes visits from the grandchildren and family more difficult though. Something that can be important in your later years.

I can tell you that most Europe will fix you up for much lower rates than USA -- heard that from people in the Baltic countries, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and a few others.

In my country -- Bulgaria -- I recall somebody on the news saying they pulled their US cousin in here and they got a complex multi-phase operational treatments (not good with medical English, sorry!) with 3 months of hospitalization... for a sum of money that would equal 1 week in hospital in USA plus only the first operation (out of 4-6).

Medical tourism is becoming a thing here in Europe.

Having to pay $3k per month for health reasons sounds like the very disaster buying health insurance was supposed to guard against.

If that $3k were paying a mortgage debt, it would be servicing more than $600,000!

If that $3k were paying a mortgage debt, it would be servicing more than $600,000!

Sadly, $600K is nothing in healthcare costs, at least retail price. A snake bite can cost $153K https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/21/hospital-appears-to-charge-1... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rattlesnake-selfie-results-in-a...

It's morbid, but why even have insurance at that age? Any major accident or stroke or whatever could be close to the end for you anyway and you still have the 2M if you absolutely need to pay

>>> That leaves you with $24K of your $60K to live on. Not saying it isn't doable, but it isn't as much as it once was.

Depends if you have to pay a rent or not.

True enough, but could say more about what a housing situation without cost would look like?

A trader who made millions of dollars would diversify his assets, especially if he lived during the last 2 decades and thus had access to cheap properties.

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