Three thousand a month is about right for private nursing home care--or was. Some of the upscale places can cost even more. If you can afford the insurance--it makes good sense--if not you may want to consider other alternatives. A family member, in Louisiana, now deceased, gave away his property--everything--to the kids and retained usufruct until his death. That solved part of the problem of worrying about nursing home expense to the extent of his possibly losing the results of a lifetime of work--if leaving it to your heirs is what you want to do. I believe at the time that the exclusion period was six months, i.o.w. the property had to have been out of his ownership for at least six months or they could go back and reclaim it. That period of time may have changed. Only a good lawyer is going to know for certain. Cash is a different ballgame altogether. Single premium life insurance policies can sometimes provide a means of transferring any cash that isn't deemed necessary to maintain a lifestyle--if leaving it to your heirs is what you want to do. If there's a sizeable amount of cash involved then you can use this as leverage to insure that those gaining the real property "behave" since the beneficiary can be changed up until practically the moment of death. Talk to a financial planner (a CPA with experience in the field) and a lawyer.

I am 3 mos from medicare and currently looking for the right supplemental insurance. As a single person, my current insurance is 780 per mo with a 2000 deductable. They doubled my premium the minute I turned 64. Tried to find another insurance but simple issues like a prescription used once, allows them to deny me. The only insurance I could find which would cover me had a 20,000 deductable and wouldn't cover existing condition for 6 mos....340 a month. And, my current insurance would not let me change my policy to lower monthly costs. Different states have different laws and has nothing to do with the same insurance company. If I had lived in FL the change was available, my state doesn't support this. With all, I stayed and paid...figured it was an additional 4,000 this year to keep my sanity after all the hours of searching for insurance that didn't want me. Had never gone to the doctor except for a yearly physical....this year I am staying completely away from them to eliminate the 2,000 deductable. I am greatful that I can eek by for a few more months with the increase, but it irks me everytime I write the check. I do have a medical problem, but it doesn't require care and only take a cheap medication. I was healthy as a horse until a year ago, but cannot feel comfortable without health insurance knowing how quickly our health can change. Without insurance they could take everything beyond my home and car...but then how would I pay for them, upkeep, etc. without my small cushion beyond social security income. And if you can't keep them, you sell and have money and they can take that. Am in the middle, have enough to live comfortably, not an extreme lifestyle, and figure I can live another 15 years this way...if health stays in line and hopefully medicare years will ease the burden of high insurance payments. My savings cushion however eliminates any outside help/benefits....you either have to be destitute or a millionaire to survive. Middle pays the way. At a time when retirement should be the best of our years, it evolves into spending the least you can and putting up with the "big guys" taking as much as they can. I sincerely worry about my children and what they will be looking at in the future to care for themselves. How much more all of this will cost and how long will they have to work to pay for all. Maybe I should have put this ramble under another thread. But the question about how much for health care really wasn't answered due to what is such a broad environment that we as retirees live in.

That's what I was wondering Susan, your ability to have access to out of area and out of Geisinger Health System care. That bill I received wasn't one isolated instance, and not an error. I received treatment at a Geisinger facility for a couple of months on a recommendation from a friend. Every time I had to see the MD in charge of the treatment I was charged as I previously described. BC/BS paid for the Rx but didn't pay for the MD visits til I met the deductibles for BS and Major Medical, 2 different deductibles, I ended up paying for most of the visits out of pocket. A couple of yrs ago I fell and had a severe Fx of my upper arm bone. There was a possibility of needing a shoulder replacement, so I chose to go out the area for surgery in case I did need the replacement. I has BC/BS at the time, so that wasn't an issue. I like to keep my options open, you never know what can happen. It's impossible to see into the future, the best you can do is to try to prepare for the eventualities that you can think of. I always say that if strange things can happen, they will happen to me.

I know I've said this before but as a Canadian I had to have emergency surgery at the ER earlier this year. Walked in, didn't even have my health card because it was expired, walked out later that night never having signed anything or pay a cent. called the billing clerk at the hospital the next week with my new expiry date and she already had it. No muss no fuss no worries and no cash involved. I pay approximately 50% of my income in taxes and federal contributions off the top plus 15% sales tax on many items and services and I'm happy to do so. In return I have access to equitable and excellent public schools, Canada pension plan and employment insurance. Oh and it takes about 15 minutes to do my tax return. there are four main ways the Canadian System saves money and promotes efficiency: 1. Prices for services are set by the provincial governments who act as the public insurer. as we discussed for example a single issue office visit at a GP is $30 In my province. 2. A whole huge layer of middleman and complexity is removed because the system is so simple. What might be a whole wing for billing in an American hospital is a room in a Canadian hospital. Not to mention we don't have intermediate insurers taking a cut. 3. Government negotiate the price of prescription drugs. 4. Family doctors are trained to act as gatekeepers and cost managers. For example if they can solve your problem they wont refer you to a specialist. there's no such thing as an MRI on demand In Nova Scotia unless you want to pay $900 for a private one. This is the most frustrating aspect of the system. but it does make sense, essentially if you're demanding a bunch of testing that doesn't fit the gold standard of care you were likely to be denied.