Health Care Costs Will Bankrupt Us All!!! Ummmm. No...

Medicare does NOT cover long term care costs.  Did you know that? Probably not.   I bet you did know, though, that you're going to spend a TON of money on health care in retirement.  Fidelity for instance says you're going to spend $275,000 in costs on health care and that's BEFORE you even visit a long term care facility. And I can see it now... We hardly have enough in my retirement account to put food on the table, and now Fidelity and a lot of other firms are saying we're going to need nearly $300k to pay for health casts in retirement??!!  What are we going to do??? The answer is...stop worrying about this.  Do you know you're going to need over $500k in retirement in order to put food on the table? Did you know you'll need another $500k in your retirement to pay for housing costs, and that's before you factor in if you have a mortgage or not??? OMG, OMG!  We're all doomed!!! STOP the insanity!  We're not all doomed.  How these researchers like Fidelity get their numbers is basic stuff. They calculate the costs of "Free" health care via Medicare and compound that number over the number of years you will be in retirement.  Believe it or not, FREE Medicare has Premiums for Part B and D. Those premiums START at almost $200 a month, per beneficiary and go up as income levels increase. Then there are co-pays, co-insurance, deductibles etc.  You may have a Medigap or Medicare Advantage plan which also could have premiums too.  Those expenses adjusted for inflation over say a 25 year time frame are where Fidelity gets that dastardly number of $275k or whatever it is in the year they publish the study. Don't worry though, Fidelity has solutions for you to deal with that huge cost. Simply invest more money with them!  Works like a charm.  Frighten people to save more and hopefully those same people in the course of their savings will use their funds in which they get fees.  Amazing piece of salemsanship.