One of the biggest factors in figuring out when early retirement is possible for me is the uncertainty of health care. I've looked into ACA plans, tried to estimate how much things will cost when life is healthy and when it isn't, and considered alternative scenarios, but haven't made myself comfortable, yet, with my options. What are you considering before you qualify for Medicare?

ACA and other commercial plans?
Spouse/partner not retiring early?
Participate in a country with universal/national healthcare?

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[–] FancyPantsFIRE@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I’ve been looking into this quite a bit lately. The realistic option is to use an ACA plan, but man the plans are rough compared to my employer provided insurance based on any metric: premium, oop max, out of network coverage, you name it. That all sucks but mostly comes down to budgeting. What I’m actually worried more about is how narrow the networks are for the average plans in my county, the average plan has something like a 14% provider participation rate which is abysmal.

What I’m most likely going to do is lean into concierge medicine for primary care and then couple it with whatever ACA plan makes the most sense.

[–] Phfedup@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Are there good resources for looking into concierge medicine? That's something I've only been more recently reading about in these kinds of forums.

[–] FancyPantsFIRE@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

There’s not a whole lot to it, it starts with finding a good doctor and practice which isn’t unique to concierge. Beyond that you pay an annual fee per person, around me that’s in the $2-3k range. That fee is out of pocket and outside insurance: this fee doesn’t cover specialists, surgery, etc. In exchange for the fee you typically get more attention and appointments on demand. The downside is that the cost is on top of insurance and you could argue its buying into or supporting a two tiered healthcare system, where the benefits you’re getting are because you’re pricing out people who can’t afford to do the same.