"Doug Winterburn" wrote:


I'm one of your "in the middle" people. I planned ahead - invested
10%
of gross for 35 years and have insurance that I carefully shopped
for.
The wife had two major medical events in '05 and '06 and I had
surgery
for colon cancer in '05, all adding up to a large 6 figure billable
total. The insurance copays weren't overly burdensome. The
insurance
company didn't try to get out of anything and there are no max
coverage
issues. The insurance premiums run a little over $800/month which
is
easily doable if you plan ahead.


Consider yourself lucky you had 35 straight years to build a nest egg.

In many cases a lengthily undisrupted period to build a nest egg was
not a possibility for many reasons.

For a family earning say $48K/annum or $4,000/month gross, an
$800/month health care premium or 20% of gross is probably a real
stretch to handle, especially if you throw in say 35% for ALL taxes,
and 30% for housing.

That leaves only about 15% or $600/month to cover all other living
expenses.

Highly unlikely that scenario is going to fly.

BTW, the 6 figure unpaid bill referred to previously, was an
accumulation of the remaining copay after the insurance company had
paid.

Lew