Author Topic: Health Insurance and Retirement?  (Read 11818 times)

Wetstuff

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #30 on: February 16, 2018, 09:30:15 AM »
Q-B...  Is just a few hundred miles north of me and I've had his experience also.  I lived in Toronto for a couple of years and carried a simple ID card - make an appointment - see the doc - end of story.  I hear all these tales about the 'wait for critical care'.  I still have friends there who would say; "Waaa?!" 

Here is an interesting story about a $17,850. urine test in Texas.  It's certain to make foreigners envious of our system.   

http://khn.org/news/pain-hits-long-after-surgery-when-a-doctors-daughter-is-stunned-by-17850-urine-test/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=c98a569d3d-MR&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-c98a569d3d-149647217


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Zooport

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #31 on: February 16, 2018, 10:05:51 AM »
Have to say I was fascinated by some of the numbers being thrown around for health insurance. Something I find hard to fathom. I’m Canadian and retired at 56 years old. I pay zero dollars for health coverage. Now to be absolutely accurate, I live in British Columbia, which is one of only two Provinces that charge a monthly fee for health insurance. My employer pays this cost as part of my retirement health benefits. But most of our Provinces do not charge any fee, and it looks like my province is in the process of either significantly reducing the fee or getting rid of it altogether. And even the current fees are not outrageous. If you’re single the fee is $75 per month, and for a couple it’s $150 for month.

I’m not saying for a moment that the Canadian health care system is perfect. Privatization is starting to creep in and we do have wait times for some procedures. But what I can say is that the cost of health care was not the slightest consideration when I was making the decision to retire early. I can’t imagine a scenario where I couldn’t retire because I couldn’t afford health insurance. These retirement years have been some of the best of my life and I really do feel for you guys who can’t pull the plug because of health insurance.






Hmm, my wife is still a Canadian citizen after 36 years with me in the US.  It would be easy for us to move to Canada and get health care.  Hmmm.
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Tom

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #32 on: February 16, 2018, 10:34:05 AM »
Spent more than a week in the hospital, and when he checked out realized that he hadn't paid. He asked what he owed and they said nothing. "But I'm a tourist." "Doesn't matter. We have free healthcare".

Holy cow!  I'll bet the taxes are high.  Sill, I'm tempted to start practicing phrases like "No worries, mate" and looking at Kiwi immigration policies for Yanks.
According to the New Zealand immigration site, you have to invest over $600000 into the country (a house counts) and have an income of at least $48k a year) could be doable for a good number of retirees from America.

Wow, what an immigration filter!  If we tried to pull that here in the US, the world would hate us and hold us in low esteem....

Look up our immigration laws and you'll fine that's included. Or check out how Trump jr sells his condos to the Chinese.

Bean

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #33 on: February 16, 2018, 11:37:50 AM »
Tom, perhaps you are referring to the employment-based “preference immigrant” category which includes foreign nationals who have invested or are actively in the process of investing $1 million (or $500,000 in targeted employment areas) in a new commercial enterprise that will benefit the U.S. economy and create at least 10 full-time positions for qualifying employees.

However, this is just one of many ways to qualify for a US "greencard". 

eastbound

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #34 on: February 16, 2018, 12:59:00 PM »
And just another reason the zones gone to shit:

I’m talking about the heroin heads and crack heads, welfare mother having baby after baby just to get a larger govt check, the people I see all the time getting “free care” because they dont have insurance or a way to pay (yet they have a fridge stocked with more food, have plenty of booze and drugs and dont forget their cigarettes), those are the people I’m talking about.

Pot, meet kettle.

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Wetstuff

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #35 on: February 16, 2018, 02:38:34 PM »
Zoo...  I paid into CDN Social Insurance ...I wonder if I could claim amnesia at the border?    Nah.  ..it's just too cold for an old person.

'Can you imagine if Canada was were Mexico is - Sheee'it they'd pay for the wall to keep us nutjobs out'.  


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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #36 on: February 16, 2018, 03:51:17 PM »
Yesterday I wrote a great response to this thread about health care, medical care, and medical insurance and how they were all different things and could be paid for in different ways. I actually had a long talk with my financial adviser last week about this. The last thing he said was "You also shouldn't drink so much beer, and hand me another beer."

But then my post timed out and the space behind it was filled with a strange political/personal beef (highlander references, etc) none of which helped Zooport. It is fascinating how political every aspect of media has become. I love to talk politics, but the US is very polarized politically right now and it is a lot less fun than it was before. I am in awe of how many people lack the inability to be wrong, or at least the ability to allow differing opinions in their brain.

Zooport, I can't imagine trying to retire in place in Southern CA without some significant passive income, or banking on an inheritance. My wife costs too much for that. One thing my financial guy said was "Don't plan to rely on the government for anything, you can only rely on them to screw stuff up for you and cost you money. So plan on doing it on your own."

Some very smart people I know are doing the following:

-Concierge primary medical (there are lots of them in your neck of the woods)
- Major medical insurance with an HSA.

Get this going while you are healthy and I think you can ride it out until your timely death. You will be broke from the cost, but I would rather be broke in Newport Beach with a surfboard than solidly middle class in some cold suburb 3 hours from the beach.


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pdxmike

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #37 on: February 16, 2018, 04:40:14 PM »
Q-B...  Is just a few hundred miles north of me and I've had his experience also.  I lived in Toronto for a couple of years and carried a simple ID card - make an appointment - see the doc - end of story.  I hear all these tales about the 'wait for critical care'.  I still have friends there who would say; "Waaa?!" 

Here is an interesting story about a $17,850. urine test in Texas.  It's certain to make foreigners envious of our system.   

http://khn.org/news/pain-hits-long-after-surgery-when-a-doctors-daughter-is-stunned-by-17850-urine-test/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=c98a569d3d-MR&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-c98a569d3d-149647217


Jim
Yikes.  You might say that excessive urine testing costs are health care's Number One problem.

Quickbeam

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #38 on: February 16, 2018, 06:18:21 PM »
Yikes.  You might say that excessive urine testing costs are health care's Number One problem.
[/quote]

Excellent!   ;D

But that aside, almost $18,000 for a urine test. Somebody should be going to jail.
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Tom

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #39 on: February 16, 2018, 10:59:31 PM »
Tom, perhaps you are referring to the employment-based “preference immigrant” category which includes foreign nationals who have invested or are actively in the process of investing $1 million (or $500,000 in targeted employment areas) in a new commercial enterprise that will benefit the U.S. economy and create at least 10 full-time positions for qualifying employees.

However, this is just one of many ways to qualify for a US "greencard".

Excuse me it's the son in law, not jr
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/08/investing/china-eb5-visa-trend/index.html

Bean

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #40 on: February 19, 2018, 06:06:58 AM »
Thanks Tom, but again, that's only one way to get in.

I'm not offended by Kushners use of this loop hole, in fact I wish I had thought of it.

eastbound

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #41 on: February 19, 2018, 07:32:51 AM »
i understand the concept of "investing" one's way to legal immigration, as well as the fact that this path exists in most developed countries, incl the US--i concede there may even be some sense to the concept---unfortunately the optic is particularly bad in current times, esp when we are threatening to send DACA children to tough gang-infested countries, in which they have never lived, and where they have no hope to defend themselves.

we will soon find out the reality of the Kushner family's attempts to connect this process to RE vehicles they have been marketing to foreigners--whatever the case, it was sleazy if not illegal to feature US President Trump all over their marketing materials, with clear reference to Trump as family member. They ceased with that marketing material after the press got on it.
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Bean

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #42 on: February 19, 2018, 11:13:15 AM »
I would agree that the Kushner marketing approach would seem sleazy in 2018. However, the Trump name as used in this RE venture, was licensed 28 years ago.

Keep in mind that this program (EB-5)and DACA are not mutually exclusive.  The 10,000 annual immigrants resulting form the EB-5 program were not dilutive to the DACA program (while it was still in effect).   And certaily, the EB-5 program had no bearing on the survivability of DACA.

In addition to the human toll related to the DACA deportations, the economic cost to the US related to ending the program could amount to $ half-trillion over the next ten years. 

eastbound

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #43 on: February 20, 2018, 03:18:17 AM »
without getting too technical...... it just looks awful to be threatening to send children to gang-infested places where they've never lived before, where they've growth up as american schoolchildren-----where at the same time anyone with 500K to "invest" in the US, can get a green card lickety-split

bad optic

and seems quite the opposite re what you claim of trump's 28 year involvement with these kushner-china deals--trump has had nothing to do with these deals beyond the inappropriate use of his name, which ceased in 2017-these deals didnt exist 28 years ago-

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/business/kushner-trump-china-green-cards.html

if ive got this wrong, link me

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eastbound

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Re: Health Insurance and Retirement?
« Reply #44 on: February 20, 2018, 04:58:57 AM »
admin, prolly not news to you, but the link i provided gets hijacked, whether one clicks it from here, or pastes to a browser---
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