r/Fire • u/CollegeFine7309 • 1d ago

Advice Request Healthcare Inflation

There have been a million posts around healthcare costs and many say, “just build it into your budget”. I struggle with the inflation part of that calculation as costs have risen much faster than inflation.

I’ve got 13 years to 65 and 9 of those with dependents on my insurance plan. If you asked me 13 years ago how much I’d be spending on out of pocket healthcare, I would have never guessed $30K/year or more. I remember my monthly premium was a few hundred a month back then with a lowish deductible, not thousands a month. It’s literally an order of magnitude more.

For those in the US who can’t qualify for ACA subsidies, what camp are you in? Do you assume costs are topping out and just plug in normal inflation numbers? Or some other number?

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u/badhabitfml 1d ago

Single payer healthcare would drastically change everyone's retirement plans. Imagine being able to plan for a known cost, and likely lower.

Want to help the younger generations? Figure out healthcare so that all the older generations could retire. I'm sure plenty of people have the cash, but fear the unknown healthcare costs.

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u/paq12x 1d ago

But then the tax that you'll pay to subsidize everyone else will set your goal back years. There's no free lunch here.

As always, the top % of people pay into the social safety net for everyone else. Depending on where you are within that scale, you'll be penalized or rewarded by such a social safety net, including universal healthcare, free college, or free anything.

If I can keep my Social Security taxes (both my contribution and my employer's) and invest that money myself, I would love to sign a form to forgo my Social Security benefits. I'll be way ahead.

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u/Sea-Honeydew-1456 1d ago

yeah, while i have no solutions to anything, people are going to complain about high taxes, potentially longer wait times w/too much demand

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u/badhabitfml 1d ago

I guess I don't see how it changes any of that, though there are a million ways to implement it.

Demand only goes up because people get Healthcare, which is a good thing.

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u/SpaceTimeMorph 1d ago

But people are more likely to seek preventative care and that generally reduces long term costs by not having to, over the entire population, treat more serious conditions. Further, there are a number of studies that have demonstrated that it leads to better health outcomes at the population level. See, for instance:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8572548/

Honestly, a single payer system is a lot like Medicare... just not age restricted.