Projected retiree health care costs rising at faster rate than Social Security COLA
Why your employees and clients must consider future health care cost increases in their retirement saving.
Baby boomers planning to fund retirement can expect annual health care costs to inflate at a rate that will outpace general inflation, and consequently, cost of living increases to Social Security benefits.
HealthView Services, a provider of health care cost-projection software to the financial services industry, is projecting retiree health expenses to increase at a 4.22 percent rate annually going forward.
That is down from last year’s projection of 5.47 percent.
The lower inflation forecast is owed largely to reduced spending on prescription drugs, as providers move more to generic alternatives, according to HealthView’s 2018 Health Care Costs Data Report.
Nonetheless, future retirees can expect substantial Medicare premium payments, supplemental insurance premiums, and other out of pocket costs. The average healthy 65-year-old couple retiring this year will pay $363,946 in out-of-pocket health care costs over the course of retirement.
When factoring for inflation, that couple’s annual expenses at age 85 will be 170 percent higher than in their first year of retirement.
If a couple narrowly outlives today’s mortality tables by two years, they will incur another $37,423 in today’s dollars.
Medicare Part B premiums are expected to rise at an average of 4.7 percent annually, and Part D premiums are expected to rise 4.5 percent. Supplemental insurance premiums are projected to increase 5.65 percent in the foreseeable future, the report says.
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