Boomers aren't at all confident about retirement, and consumer-driven health care is only making things worse.
Those are some of the findings of the 2015 Aflac WorkForces Report, which said that, although boomers are more diligent than other age groups in a number of other traditional health care benefits planning categories, CDHC has knocked them for a loop.
They're less likely to understand how it plays out for them, with just 18 percent saying they understand it (compared with millennials, 31 percent of whom say they understand it) and only 24 percent saying they've even heard of it, and to believe it's improving their overall experience. The report also found that boomers are more likely to say they've felt a financial impact from CDHC and to believe, more than other employees, that this trend will continue. And they're not happy about it, believing it will add more uncertainty to retirement concerns.
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Not only do they not believe that healthcare has improved over the past year (only 13 percent say so), 53 percent say their out-of-pocket costs have risen and 60 percent say the medical costs they'll have to pay themselves are going to go up.
With nearly 70 percent reporting that they at least somewhat agree with the statement that they've already had to make sacrifices or cut their budgets to save money, that's not good news. Almost 50 percent also say that their expected retirement age is older than they'd previously planned on, and almost seven out of 10 say that they're only somewhat confident in their financial future. In fact, 24.9 percent say they're not very confident or not at all confident in their financial future.
Not an optimistic bunch, just 21.7 percent say that their goals and dreams are financially protected; only 22.9 percent say they're well prepared for retirement.
It's not because they aren't trying; 79 percent of boomers are enrolled in employer-provided major medical insurance, and they're more likely than millennials to say that health care expenses are part of their overall financial plan (39.75 percent, compared with 21.5 percent of millennials); that they understand flexible spending accounts (38 percent, compared with 27 percent of millennials) and understand annual deductibles, too (65 percent, compared with 54 percent). And they take full advantage of employee benefits, too; 44.4 percent, compared with 38 percent of millennials.
But sometimes that's just not enough.
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