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Comment by Aeolun | Hacker News Reader

I think the most important observation of this article is that health insurance trumps literally all other costs.

How do people even live with health insurance that costs $2000 per month?

I would venture most people in the US simply do not (or forgo) adequately saving or investing for the future, especially for their years after age 50.

There are quite a bit of subsidies available though if you're in the bottom ~5 income deciles:

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/subsidized-coverage/

I think you get screwed roughly in the 6th to 8th income decile range, where you are not rich enough to be able to weather a calamity, but you are also earning too much to get assistance. A lot of people fall back down to the bottom deciles trying to move up to the top deciles if/when something goes wrong, but life is pretty nice for those that do make it.

the monthly premium isn’t even the worst part, deductibles keep getting higher and it’s not uncommon to be surprised with a bill for services that weren’t covered by your plan (and it’s very difficult to ensure you’re 100% covered before receiving services, and nearly impossible in an emergency)

This should help on the out of network emergency billing front:

https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/07/01/hhs-announces-rule...

it is promising, but note that it doesn’t apply to ambulances - so we’ll still be ubering to the er

I calculated last year that for my family of 5, our health insurance premiums (when you include the portion my employer pays) equaled almost to the dollar the amount we spent on every other thing last year.

Granted we are pretty frugal, but health insurance is insane.

Well, that's why you need at least $1M (stressing at least) to retire in US. That's insane!

You only need that if you want to live beyond what Social Security and public assistance provide.

The purchasing power of social security benefits has been going down for many, many years. I predict it will continue to go down and become more means tested as the proportion of working to not working population goes down.

I assume social security will just be a nice bonus if I get it in the 2050s.

Social Security payouts have been adjusted upward for inflation almost every year since 1975. You can see the data here: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html

There are no plans to discontinue this practice. Many people believe SS will not be meaningfully available to them at retirement decades from now, which is understandable skepticism, but is not a reflection on how retirement is intended to work in the US.

Those inflation statistics have no bearing on my experienced expenditures over the course of my life and where I intend to spend money in the future.

If I took all my expenses over my adult life of 15 years and calculated the price change between 15 years ago and when I purchased them, the total increase in prices eclipses the official nationwide statistics.

So I assume healthcare costs will continue at above official inflation (especially as the proportion of young to old people decreases, which means less supply of labor in the face of increasing demand). And similar movements in the land and other labor I would be interested in.

Also, social security retirement age was 65, and it was updated to 67 for those born in 1960 or later. It would be prudent to expect more increases in future years. I can easily see 70 being the new age at which you get “full” social security benefits.

> but is not a reflection on how retirement is intended to work in the US.

It does not matter what the intentions are. At the end of the day, it is productivity from the younger groups that allows for the benefits to be realized by older groups. As the younger group gets fewer and fewer, and the older group gets bigger and bigger, the supply of productivity from the younger groups decreases and the demand for it increases.

The only way that works out is if fewer people actually get to realize those benefits, which means you want to be able to pay for it (with cash and/or political power).

In the scenario that spawned this thread, much of the healthcare inflation costs are borne by a state’s public health option. In some states, all or a portion of housing is as well.

Again, I totally understand the skepticism about the long-term viability of social security. I also foresee retirement age adjustments up (they make some sense since people are living and working longer) and I also think that the income limitation on Social Security and Medicare tax will be increased in our lifetimes without offering proportional additional benefits to those paying to deal with the insufficient size in the working populations.

However, the original misconception that started this thread was that a million in cash is required to retire in the US, and it’s simply not, and it’s not the intention of US policy to make that situation come about. It may inadvertently happen due to economic stress, but the same can be said about any western country’s expensive public welfare programs.

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