Pulaski

Well you can't take it with you, at least not the last time I checked.

So, it's just a question of whether you want to spend your final days in a private care facility of your (or your heirs' ) choosing, or in a bargain basement facilty with shared rooms and minimal staff coverage.

scrubbedexpat099

There are Trusts and Reverse Mortgages, obviously a major growth area.

scrubbedexpat091

True, I do agree with you if there are assets available, they should be exhausted first. I have no issue with that, isn't that what people invest and save for, retirement and end of life needs?

If not for cancer exhausting my mom's retirement account, she would be far better off financially but she never owned a home.

I think sometimes our life span is becoming too long in some ways, people can't always work past 65 or 70, but may live 20-30 more years at times, but not have enough to live for that long in retirement.

My step dad's mom is 98 now, she retired at 55, but her retirement fund ran out back when she was 80, she didn't plan to live past 80, do her retirement planning was based on 80 years old.

My great grandmother was in the same situation, lived to 96, retired at 60, and planned until 80 years old.

Obviously not the norm to live to 90+, but its becoming more common, and I wonder how many others only plan retirement based on living 80 years old?

scrubbedexpat099

To state the obvious most people do not plan at all.

GeoffM

So wifey left her job on May 27th. Theoretically we could continue Kaiser Permanente coverage until her new insurance started on July 1st. KP did not receive notification of her resignation until June 18th, and thus won't send the forms for continued coverage (Cobra?) until around now. In the meantime the pharmacies and medical facilities show us as "not covered" and thus "not eligible for KP <anything>" as of June 18th (luckily I did a refill prescription a few days before - though it seems I may now be billed full price).

Helpfully their member centre said that if we did not use any facilities after May 27th then there's no need to pay if we didn't want to (!), and if we did then it would be up to us whether it would be beneficial to pay $1200ish premiums or at-cost for whatever we received.

And KP is supposedly one of the simpler ones, being insurance and medical all-in-one. Gotta love the NHS for at least the aspect of being able to walk out after an op or whatever with no financial uncertainty in the following months.

Ozzidoc

I wish that I could write an informative post on this topic.

NHS burnout is phenomenal. It is falling apart.

DoI: Medical doctor, gave up my NHS job in Feb 2014

steveq

Its a sacred cow. It Is The Best, exactly as the American system is, but it plainly isn't. It CAN be very very good.....but it can often be mediocre and sometimes criminally negligent...

As a for instance, after weeks of GP appointments, blood tests, and medication for anaemia and indigestion my mum has been diagnosed with kidney cancer, largely as the result of the very kind LUNG specialist that kept my dad alive for more than 10 years passed the mean survival time for his condition, seeing mum for "a cough".

Admitted for pre-op last week, blood tests taken (on top of the previous 4), admitted for surgery on Monday....transfused after life threatening anaemia detected on Monday morning.....sent home Wednesday....who checked her bloods the previous 5 times ?

HumphreyC

I live in the northeast - I find it a lot cheaper than the UK, but then I do live in the boonies in banjo territory.

Whereabouts do you live - Boston metro ?

Pulaski

He's in one of the Boston ivory towers, I believe!

scrubbedexpat099

Reduction in GP funding puts entire NHS at risk, BMA conference to hear
Doctors' leader to warn that general practice is 'imploding', with patients often waiting two weeks for appointments

Reduction in GP funding puts entire NHS at risk, BMA conference to hear | Society | The Guardian

They also want to ban cigarettes, like that will work.

steveq

There are two surgeries we deal with here. One has a two week wait, before one of the doctors deigns to bestow his skills upon us lesser mortals, the other, you walk in before 9am and you'll be seen by a doctor by noon. Its not the money. Its the attitude to patients.

scrubbedexpat099

At least they get paid either way.

Giantaxe

This is one reason why I dislike the NHS model. As Boiler points out, they'll get paid by the government either way. There really is little incentive to improve service under such circumstances, but at the first mention of trying to introduce competition into the NHS we get squeals of horror as to how the system is being "Americanized". Wtf is wrong with competition and the private provision of public services?

scrubbedexpat099

I was being a bit cynical, I had a friend in the UK who was maybe still is a Doctor so see it from both sides.

As an observation the US does not do public services very well, VA debacle for example, quite how a US NHS would do is very debatable.

hungryhorace

Within 20 miles of Boston Centre.