| To remain financially solvent in later life, your health will be your greatest asset -- not your bank book.
Society has reached a point when somebody else will no longer pick up the tab for your failure to respect your body. The financial burden of poor health will fall on you.
What basis do I have for making such a statement?
Allow me to list a few:
I had a conversation with a retiree from a salaried position. He said he received a letter stating his former employer will no longer provide health care benefits to salaried retirees next year.
Fidelity Investments reports lifetime health care costs will cost a couple who retired last year about $200,000 in health care costs.
Looking at our agency's local data shows no end to skyrocketing drug costs. Although there are many low-cost generic drugs, too few doctors are prescribing generic medications. In 2000, it was the uninsured who could not afford their medicine. An average subsidy of $65 per person a month was needed to buy drugs that treat diabetes, congestive heart failure, arthritis, high blood pressure, cataracts or glaucoma -- the most common illnesses of older people.
Today, we are finding a need to subsidize those with Medicare Part D prescription insurance. The sample population we are studying requires a partial subsidy of at least $123 per person a month to treat the same illnesses.
Pharmaceutical companies demonstrate a growing interest in generic drugs. Jim Guest, president of Consumer Reports.Org says, "Brand-name drug companies are jumping into the generic market by repackaging their own products to go head-to-head with existing generic manufacturers. While that might seem like a good thing, more competitors and lower prices make generic manufacturers less motivated to vie for smaller profits. The FTC is considering an assessment of both the short-term and long-term competitive effects."
It is clear now is the time to treat our bodies and our minds with greater reverence. If you are 60 or older, in your normal weight range, and you can walk, bend, lift, balance, problem-solve and recall information without difficulty, now is the time to preserve and improve what your body and mind has to offer. If you are not in your normal weight range and noticing a little difficulty doing these activities, now is the time to improve. It is not too late. You can't afford not to. |
