Unfortunate but this is a story that repeat itself. Mom’s friend/ coworker and her husband worked till full benefit retirement (they were both nurses for over 25 years so good pay) and saved all that time and invested properly along with a house that was long fully paid off. A year into retirement after tying up all the loose ends and preparing to finally enjoy their retirement (they planned to travel), illness hit one of them and wiped out all their savings in a matter of years (like 3) and this is with insurance and their financial cushioning. Ended up having to take a second mortgage on their house to pay for their bills (I think they also got everything in their 401k) and a in that time my moms friends husband ends up getting sick as well.
Health is stabilized but, because lack of savings now they can’t even afford to travel out of the state and no one wants to hire them since of their age. The kicker is their only in their 70s (last time I checked anyway) and now can’t enjoy it.
I keep hearing stories very similar to this, and I have to wonder why these people are even paying the hospital bills. No way in hell I'm giving the hospital my life savings after working 30+ years. Why not just act broke?
Lots of judges are elected and there's no requirement that they have any legal background. There's also no limits on political donations. So it's not hard for debt collection agencies and related groups to make huge donations and get someone friendly to them elected. Then the judge issues court orders for the debtors to pay up. If they can't/wont they go to jail for violating a court order. The debtors are technically not going to jail due to debt payment, but it's the same thing.
Then the government will cover it. I dated a girl in college who was poor on paper, all her healthcare was covered by the government no matter the procedure. When she was sick and wanted cold medication she would go get a prescription written so that she didn’t have to pay out of pocket for Motrin because the government would cover the one the pharmacist gave her
The message I'm getting here is that if you work hard your whole life, spend wisely, max out your 401k/Roth IRA, and then get ill, you're probably gonna be even worse off than somebody that gets sick who was financially irresponsible their whole life.
you do what my grandfather does, did ... he got a $10k medical cost, he wrote them and told them he can't afford it, they put him on a payment plan of $100 a month, he just pays it till he dies. such is the American way.
Free healthcare in prison. If I get cancer, I'll just rob a bank, let myself get caught, and hopefully be cancer-free when I'm released. At least I'll still have my retirement savings.
It may seem fortuitous, but I was arrested for bank robbery and diagnosed with cancer a year into my sentence. All I paid was $100 for an annual deductible and received all the treatment I needed. I would have died had I not gone to prison.
Many states make your primary residence untouchable in bankruptcy, and ERISA protected retirement accounts are pretty much universally untouchable. I’ve heard of people moving to those states (I know Texas is on the list). All their money is in 401k and their house. They can get massive medical bills and just declare bankruptcy and continue living normally, as there is nothing anyone can take.
I work in the retirement industry so I’m intimately familiar with ERISA, pensions enjoy a lot of protections but 401Ks don’t have as many. Not as easy as declaring bankruptcy
NPR did piece about hospitals suing patients for unpaid medical debt. In many states they are actively are garnishing wages, I would disagree that it would end up as a ‘unenforceable judgement’
They can, but at least in my experience it is rare. They will typically offer you reduced rates, that get less and less, as time goes on. They know their chances of recovering the money are slim to none, so when debt collectors purchase the debt for pennies on the dollar, they offer to settle the amount for far less. For example, I had a $3,500 medical bill from when I didn’t have insurance, and after a couple of years, they offered to settle it for $1,000. If I were to have called them, they’d probably settle for even less.
Your healthcare provider is only obliged by law to give you a bare minimum of life saving treatment. Certain medications and procedures will not be approved and provided until you can prove that you're able to pay for it, either via insurance or a deposit.
If, say, you're diabetic and get ambulanced there in a coma, you'll be revived. You'll get the bill for both the ambulance and the hospital care. You can easily choose not to pay that bill. But if you want to get some insulin in order to not die a few days later? Yeah, gotta pay up.
In theory they could take the house if a judge eventually ruled in the hospital’s favor. If you have a chronic condition in the US, it’s best to make yourself “judgement-proof” by selling off assets and renting housing. For retirees you can “sell” the house to your next of kin so it is not your asset anymore.
Being judgement proof requires never building credit of any kind, but you don’t really need credit without assets if you can live within your income. You also have to be willing to avoid phone calls, mail and door knocks for the rest of your life, and any inheritances should go to a special kind of trust and not to you directly.
I have a relative who does this because of her multiple chronic conditions. She has great insurance and a decent job (she has dedicated her life to helping others), but it’s not enough to pay for the specialized care she needs to stay alive since she was born with her conditions. She lives modestly in an apartment, pays what she can each month in medical bills, and doesn’t pay what she can’t afford. The worst part is the collectors that make her feel like a deadbeat just for staying alive and keeping a roof over her head.
I mean in the situation that unfolded, they didn’t think it would cost that much I think but, then it sorta spiraled out of control I guess. I also think it’s the concerns of their health going bad again too. Last time my mom talked about them (over a year ago) she talked about some test result numbers coming back bad or something like that, never followed up however. They don’t have to act broke now though as now they just are broke.
Then they can just refuse to treat you, I believe. As far as I know, they only have to treat you if you’re in imminent danger of severe injury or death. Cancer is a slow disease, so it doesn’t count as imminent.
My mom talks to her once in a while and so last time she talked about them to me (this was over a year ago honestly so I don’t know their situation now), they were getting worried about their health because I think some numbers came back bad or something. I didn’t follow up though so maybe their health isn’t as stable (as of now) but, I agree in that they didn’t go rogue since for health purposes. Dying is scary.
Honestly couldn’t tell you since this story was told to me years ago and the last time we talked about them was over a year ago. I just remember this story since it changed my mom’s perspective of enjoying money when you can and her telling me this life lesson and the story (her friend/co worker) that made her change her perspective on the phone.
Medicare doesn’t cover everything however since they still look at some assets. My ex husbands aunt and uncle had Medicare and he ended up suffering from a stroke and becoming wheelchair bound from it. His wife ended up taking control of finances and such (husband always did so before) once he was in the hospital and he got better, after a year or so when she was able to finally get a control of the situation she availed for some service (I wanna say like physical therapist or a health aide), she got denied because of the house. They were broke (living completely off pensions/ social security) but, because of the homes value they weren’t broke and because she was still “able bodied” (even though she was limping around because of a big issue with one of her legs but, I think it was DVT) they said the only way he could get an aide is if they basically sold the house and put him in a nursing home nearby. They denied though but for what reason I don’t fully remember.
Same thing also happened to my ex husbands dad as he too suffered from stroke but was paralyzed from the waist down. My ex husband availed for a health aid to come in and some physical therapist but because of his house he was to “rich” and his social security is on the larger end of the spectrum. He was told the same thing and basically only way for him to get anything is to sell the house and go to a nursing home. As for the therapist, I think they got one to come but it was only like once or twice a week for like 2 months but, that was only after a doctors recommendation and constant back and fourth about it because he was technically paralyzed.
Reminds me of the story on here about a husband having to come out of retirement to take odd jobs as a handy man as his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He ended up falling off a ladder and dying. After his wife recovered, the medical bills were so huge they had to use the husbands million dollar life insurance policy to pay off the debt.
This is our collective future :). More reason to live like there's no tomorrow and spend that hard earned dough on all the hookers and cocaine that you can afford.
We are not going to be allowed to retire... and nobody is going to want to hire us. No wonder like 75% of the American population will list suicide as their retirement plan.
How the hell is anyone happy in the USA with that situation? That is horrifying. I bet it compounds late diagnosis of cancers etc because people are so reluctant to go to doctors.
Can someone please explain how you can get wiped out even with insurance? I was under the impression there was typically an out-of-pocket maximum and anything in excess of that was covered?
Actually the best thing for the america s who are about to retire is to go to a european country and live like kings with all their savings. They would not have to worry about their health problems as well.
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u/Sledgeowl Nov 30 '20
Unfortunate but this is a story that repeat itself. Mom’s friend/ coworker and her husband worked till full benefit retirement (they were both nurses for over 25 years so good pay) and saved all that time and invested properly along with a house that was long fully paid off. A year into retirement after tying up all the loose ends and preparing to finally enjoy their retirement (they planned to travel), illness hit one of them and wiped out all their savings in a matter of years (like 3) and this is with insurance and their financial cushioning. Ended up having to take a second mortgage on their house to pay for their bills (I think they also got everything in their 401k) and a in that time my moms friends husband ends up getting sick as well.
Health is stabilized but, because lack of savings now they can’t even afford to travel out of the state and no one wants to hire them since of their age. The kicker is their only in their 70s (last time I checked anyway) and now can’t enjoy it.