Surveys show that many Americans worry that healthcare costs will consumer a large portion of their resources. One reason is that we are exposed to a steady stream of news headlines with daunting forecasts of what you will need to spend over the course of your entire retirement. Fidelity Investments, for example, estimates that a 65-year old couple retiring in 2019 can expect to spend $285,000 on health care and medical expenses throughout retirement. The Employee Benefit Research Institute found that a 65-year-old couple could need nearly $400,000 to meet lifetime expenses in a worst-case scenario.
But these forecasts can be misleading, since you won’t be spending these big sums all at once. And much of your healthcare spending can be managed very well - because it can be predicted and covered by health insurance. The more important questions: What are the outsize risks that could upset your retirement plan? And, what can you do to mitigate those risks?
This week, I’m releasing my new guide to the cost of healthcare in retirement. As always, the guide is paired with a podcast interview with a top expert on the topic. For this one, my guest is Steve Vernon. Steve is an actuary by background, and he worked for years as a consultant to large corporate retirement plans before starting his own consumer retirement education firm. He also is a research scholar at the Stanford Center on Longevity, and writes a column for CBS MoneyWatch.
Steve’s latest book is called Retirement Game-Changers. In it, he focuses on helping older workers navigate the critical decisions they need to make as they transition from employment to retirement. And the book provides very thoughtful insights on how to think about health care in retirement.
Click on the player icon at the top of this page to listen to our conversation. And download your copy of the guide here.
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This podcast is part of the newsletter I distribute to subscribers to the RetirementRevised.com newsletter. It’s a listener-supported endeavor, and I hope you’ll consider subscribing. Along with the podcast, you’ll get access to the series of retirement guides that I’m publishing right now - brief, downloadable resources to help you understand challenges like optimizing Social Security benefits, transitioning to Medicare from other types of insurance and how to hire a financial adviser. Each guide is paired with a podcast interview with a top expert in the field.
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