I often hear from readers who’ve lost their jobs in their 50s or early 60s to layoffs or involuntary “early retirement.” It’s a very stressful time all around, but finding health insurance is one of the biggest challenges. Coverage from former employers is on a countdown to expiration or already is gone. Medicare benefits are years [...] [read full article…]
The Bush Administration is proposing regulations to blunt inappropriately aggressive marketing of private Medicare insurance plans. The new rules would outlaw unsolicited visits and phone calls to beneficiaries and regulate commissions paid to sales agents. About 55 percent of Medicare recipients also subscribe to supplemental private plans such as Medicare Advantage or prescription drug plans. Consumer [...] [read full article…]
There was a time-not long ago-when we didn’t use computers or digital media players to manage our music collections or watch TV. Now we could be approaching something like an era of iPods for aging. At least, that’s Eric Dishman’s vision of the near-term future. Dishman spearheads a major initiative to develop “personal health technologies” at [...] [read full article…]
File this under “thanks for nothing.” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt admits Medicare is heading toward an implosion, but admits it’s too late for the Bush Administration to do anything about it. Via Reuters: . . . the next administration will have to act to stop rising costs and get control of [...] [read full article…]
Do we really become more set in our ways as we age? Not according to a recent SecurePath by Transamerica survey. The C.U.R.E. Retirement Study (change, uncertainty, risk and retirement education) probed the attitudes of pre-retirees about how they deal with factors outside their control, such as the economy. The survey responses seem to contradict [...] [read full article…]
Americans’ confidence about their ability to retire comfortably has fallen sharply and stands at the lowest level in seven years, according to survey research released today by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The percentage of individuals highly confident about their retirement outlook dropped from 27 percent to 18 percent, according to EBRI. Other key findings: Health [...] [read full article…]
You plan your retirement savings. You probably have some plans for retirement travel. Maybe you’ve got a plan for the dream retirement home. But are you planning your retirement body? If not, it’s time to get busy. “It’s possible to envision the kind of physical body that we want to have in retirement,” says author John Nelson. [...] [read full article…]
Most baby boomers don’t understand the basics of Medicare, according to a survey by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Investment News reports that 66 percent of boomer respondents said they were “not very familiar” or “not at all familiar” with the plan’s options, such as Part B, which covers some medical costs, [...] [read full article…]
Have you heard this year’s presidential candidates debate the Retirement Health Care Tax? No? Probably because there is no official tax with that name. But it’s out there, just the same. The Retirement Health Care Tax is a collection of expenses you’ll pay for health care after age 65. And it should be a topic within [...] [read full article…]
The amount of money retirees will need to set aside to cover out-of-pocket health care expenses is projected to rise 4.7 percent this year compared with 2007, according to Fidelity Investments research released today. Fidelity calculates that a couple age 65 will need $225,000 to cover health expenses across their retirement years. That number has [...] [read full article…]
RetirementRevised.com is the companion website of Retire Smart, a column written by Mark Miller that appears in more than 30 newspapers each week. For millions of Baby Boomers, retirement is an opportunity for reinvention, rather than taking it easy. Mark is helping write the playbook for the new career and personal pursuits of a generation.
