What’s the Biggest Threat to your Retirement?
Henry Montag, CFP, CLTC | October 12th, 2008While some would say its inflation, others would say its a recession, and others still, might think its a stock market crash that is the biggest threat to their retirement. The truth is that its neither taxes, interest rates nor volatility spikes. It’s instead living a good long life and then incurring unexpected un-reimbursed health care costs amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This situation could by far be a much bigger threat to your own retirement that you could have ever imagined.
Many people are of the wrong impression that there must be some governmental program out there that will pay for some or a big part of these unreimbursed healthcare costs. The fact of the matter is that there are no governmental programs available to pay for these costs other than Medicaid. But to qualify one must be destitute and have virtually no assets in their name. It used to be much easier to qualify for Medicaid but several years ago they changed the eligibility requirements and made it more difficult for a person to qualify for benefits if he/she is only artificially impoverishing themselves.
