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Another of the many reasons it is getting ridiculous to retire in the US. Healthcare insurance. Today I was talking with my brother who is retired. He pays for his own health coverage through his former employer.
This month he got his new rate. $600.00 per month, for him and his wife. Up from $400.00 the previous cycle. So he figures he can do better and makes a call to the insurance company directly, and asks for a rate.
He didn’t think he would get a mortgage payment quote. $2000.00 a month. That’s the going rate for 2 people.
Positively insane!
I can’t convince him Costa Rica is an option for retirement. At least not yet. A couple of more billing cycles and he might change his mind.
The cost of healthcare here will exceed the cost of shelter and food at this rate, in very short order. It’s time to circle the wagons folks.
He was quoted US$2,000 per MONTH for health insurance? US$24,000 per year? Don’t suppose his Social Security payment helps him much with that…
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comHe’s still got a liitle more to go before he receives SS. And quite a bit more still for Medicare. $24k a year, can you believe it?
I believe it! People in my office with family’s pay $1600 per month for coverage and these are young health people.. My rate is $700 per month for me and my girlfriend, at the moment I am winging it with no insurance. And when you sign up for the lower cost policies it can be real difficult getting them to pay if you don’t follow the exact protocol.
I am still paying around $200 for single coverage through my U.S. employer. That is a 30% increase from last month. $2000 a month! I dont understand why it would be so much for someone else.
I shudder to think what the cumulative effects are going to be in about 10 years time when a good portion of the boomers begin to have the serious health problems associated with age after lifetimes of stressful jobs. The rates will skyrocket even further after a few years of payouts on claims…or worse…perhaps there simply will not be any healthcare insurance available. Are you all ready for socialized medicine in the United States….The $2000 per month was if you buy on your own and not through the employer’s group, Sprite. Also it was for 2 people. Still, an outrageous sum! Your’s may be $200, but my guess is, your employer is picking up part of the tab.
The problem with health care is that it is not health care. They really dont care about your health. One of the solutions to health care is if we start taking responsibility to take care of ourselves and stop killing ourselves with the food we eat and the advertised medicines we see in the TV commercials. We could radically reduce our health care cost if we stop eating to much, stop drinking to much and most of all quit smoking.
When I visit the US I see that the average weight for a woman 5’5 is about 200lbs. We could greatly reduce health care cost by becominng healthy. We have been dupted inro believing that what we eat or drink play no part in our health. Now we are also allowing them to kill us with their expensive medication. We need to get our minds off how much it cost to get sick and concentrate on staying well. Why are we taking that stuff, can you explain why we would take something that lower cholesterol but yet will attack every muscle in your body.
We can play a great part in reducing the cost, just by living healthier. The Dr. needs you to come in pay him $150.00 so you can keep a check to make sure the medicine he gave you is not killing you. Just when things look real bad he will take you off the medicine and then you are faced with what you had and then what the medicine gave you. I think we must not only be blind but dumb, how can they sale us things that will fix a headache and kill the liver.
It took me a long time to figure that I was going in getting blood test not to measure my sugar but to measure the damage medication I was taking was doing to my liver. Liberate me from this madness, who is crazy and why am I going around trying to figure out how I can get this stuff they are killing me with free. When am I going to wake up an realize that if it is important to put quality gas in my car then what I put in my body also determines my rate of repair. I know every disease is not caused simply by what we eat, but every disease is helped to manifest by what we eat. Almost every disease is an immune system disorder.
$2,000.00 for health care, when eating right would be so much cheaper. The best health insurance plan you can get is to eat a good balanced diet and stop stuffing ourselves with this packaged crap we find in the stores.
Jenny, That is probably the most powerful comment on healthcare. We are responsible for our own well being. We have turned over our bodies to a profit industry which has given us as many problems as they have solved. Doctors routinely put you on and switch you to other medications due to side effects. Sometimes the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, but with all the new drugs on the market, without proven records, side effects may increase. Yesterday I heard on the radio, the FDA in the US cannot guarantee the quality of US drugs. The reason is the fact that 90% of the drugs US manufacturers dispense are being compounded from foreign ingredients. They can’t keep the lead out of toys, how can they insure the purity of our medications. This is an absolute horror. I remember when GWB warned people from buying medications from Canada at a discount. He said you could not be sure of its quality. Now we find US drug makers are using imported ingredients in our medicines. This is outrageous.
I believe in limited government. A government that turns its obligation of protecting its citizens over to private corporations, is not limited government. It is one that has been lobbied to corruption, and has failed in its job. Still, government grows larger daily and the citizens are losing their voice and control over it. Of, by and for the people, used to mean something. It is now becoming just a slogan.
Take a look at the survey Scott has on healthcare costs, and tell me you are not slightly shocked that in the worlds richest nation, 16% of the respondents can’t afford healthcare. And these are people who visit this site, presumably to look at purchasing a home or moving to Costa Rica. I’m sure most are not in the poorest group of our nations citizens.
I am convinced universal healthcare in the US will never work. There are too many making too much that they will not be willing to sacrifice in order to bring down the costs. While there are I’m sure, dedicated doctors and medical scientists, the system is set up for profit, and it will be almost impossible to change.
Somewhat related to this is Scott’s email today about the shrinking US dollar. If our medications are imported, we will be paying more for them as time goes on. We have lost the ability to control our own destiny in this country. Our children and grandchildren will inherit a broken and dependent nation because of what our “supposed leaders” have done.
I know this sounds like gloom and doom, but can anyone see it any other way? I think many of us would like to see a ray of hope.
We are the problem, you and I, we have allowed them to do this. We voted for them we spend our money and purchase this stuff. They appeal to our greed and self centered desires. We have to be accountable. We need to get away from the devil made me do it concept.
If you haven’t already seen it, you will find the movie, “The Future of Food” a very helpful and well documented source. Unfortunately when Hippocrates said, “Let food be your medicine and your medicine be your food,” we hadn’t entered the industrial age and managed to contaminate so many of our basic resources (water, air, land, food sources, etc.) with natural and manmade compounds, but I agree with Jenny, the foundation of this axiom still applies today.
But you’re under the impression that your vote counts.
That is actually means something.
That they listen to you and care about what you think?
Have we not learned anything?
Ive added years to my life when I quit smoking. I added years when I stopped eating a lot of sweet things. I added years when I stopped holding grudges and getting angry about problems I could not solve. We have a vote and it does count, now maybe the company that made the menthols cancer sticks I smoked did not know when I quit but boy I knew. Maybe the sugar manufacturer did not care that I used less sugar but I knew the difference. We can make a difference, we are not helpless and our situation is not hopeless. We can easily stop buying all of that junk and refuse to take some of those medications. We have power with the Dr. and the hospitals, we can refuse to be robbed. We can require an accountability. Here we are under Tri Care, if I allow Tri care to pay the doctor directly the doctor will charge Tri Care $75.00, but if I pay him and then send the bill in he charges $40.00 at Cima. Well I go to the local Dr. and he charges $20.00. Do the math, that is not only happening here but that is going on all over. So the govenment is not the only one responsible.
I can act like that $75.00 inflated price does not come out of my pocket but believe me we pay for it. We need to be responsible and we have not been, that is the bottom line. We are in a generation now that blames everything on someone or something else. I took drugs because my childhood was bad, I smoked because my boss on the job gave me stress, I ate to much because my mom feed me to much when I was a kid. I drank because my dad drank. Just make the list, very seldom do you hear us say we made a bad choice.
Healthcare is an oxymoron! Big Pharma doesn’t want you to be healthy. They don’t make any money then. What always amazes me are the number of expats who post on various boards asking how much their blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds, and antidepressants cost in Costa Rica. Then a few posts later they’re talking about their favorite American junk food that they are desperately searching for. You would think that people making life changing decisions about moving to another country would also make life changing decisions about what they put in their bodies, but noooooooo, they moved to paradise and brought their unhealthy habits with them. No mind, they can go to their doctors for a fraction of the cost of those same docs in the US and they can get all those petrochemicals they pump into their bodies for 10% of what they use to pay in gringolandia. If the healthcare system is so great in the US why are we the fattest and sickest in the world, and take more pharmaceuticals than any other country. Oh yeah, I forgot, America is the only country that allows direct to consumer drug advertising. Since they’ve pathologisized every human emotion and character trait there is almost no one who doesn’t need the latest antidepressant or mood elevating drug — don’t worry about the suicide or homicide warnings they carry. It won’t happen to you! Healthcare was hijacked by big business 25 years ago and there is no going back because cancer, diabetes, and heart disease make so much money for Big Pharma, thanks to the doctors they bribe to dispense the latest blockbuster drug, even if that drug carries the side effect of sudden death. It’s not a healtcare system at all — it’s an industry of death and sickness. And pretty soon all of this will be part of Costa Rica culture when CAFTA kicks into high gear.
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