re: Estimated MONTHLY Health Care Cost for me @ 67- $8,400 - that's 28 yrs from now

Talk to some elderly people you know & trust: ask them how much they're spending on a Medicare Part B supplement. Then ask what their monthly incomes are....I don't doubt you'll find people, right now, spending 1/3 of their monthly retirement incomes to ensure they're not at the mercy of Medicare alone. So it's easy enough to imagine health care costs continuing to rise to even more stratospheric levels unless there is some kind of market reset.

We are going to collapse under the weight of health care soon. Or we will see retirees fleeing the country in droves....what a sad state of affairs.

My better half just had an MRI on his foot. Thinking about maximizing his schedule, he had the MRI at the local hospital down the block from his office. Dumb move: his portion of the test was $975. I called a local imaging-only place and they quoted $375 for the same test. Of course, all the $975 was out of pocket b/c we haven't met our deductible. Everyone, rich/poor, loathes the lack of transparency in pricing, billing practices, and outright larceny that masquerades as "free market healthcare" in the US.