For the first woman you mentioned I hope you reported the advisor to the authorities. I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure that the crime involved is either failure to fulfill one's fiduciary responsibility or elder abuse.
"and I fear readers wouldn’t object, especially if they didn’t know how the articles were generated." Uh oh! Seems like you might have opened a can of worms. ChatGPT: Please write me an article in the style of Jonathan Clements on the potential use of public AI sites such as ChatGPT and Copilot in the writing of interesting financial articles. :-)
With respect to #8, I discovered an obvious flaw in the way the ACA subsidy worked. If your income is low, but high enough you can't get medicaid you get a big subsidy. At a high enough income it goes away. At a certain income level, the rate at which the subsidy is removed is steeper. It's so steep that you can earn more but end up with less.
I think the problem here is fish swimming in water but unware that it is there. People have to exersize good judgement in life, not just limited to spending habits, but spending addiction is a real thing. A first cousin of mine spent herself into the grave. She was never able to hold a job but lived off her parents. When they passed away she had a limited source of money. Instead of using it carefully, she manically spent it on makeup, clothes and hairdressers. In the end she was running a gofundme while living out of her car. She succumbed to an easily treatable medical condition because of her out of control situation. Another example is people addicted to gambling. This is a known disease and in responsbile societies such as in Europe, steps are taken to limit the damage of this type of behavior in casinos. In this country we provide nothing. Capitalism doesn't care where it earns money from nor what damage occurs in the process of obtaining it. We take an additional step with credit cards. We feed the addiction. Worse yet, we almost require the use of credit cards to establish credit for big items like cars and homes. Pointing the finger at people with irresponsible spending habits is a case of blaming the victim.
Your are trying to hard to be fair. There's a simple way to diagnose the difference between traditional Medicare and Advantage plans. Behind Advantage are companies who only are there to make a profit. If you know that your golden years will be completely healthy and then you will just drop dead one day, Advantage is to your advantage. Otherewise, not so much. Who among us knows that for sure.
My own feeling is that Advantage is a sucker bet. Just as with the good old days of getting private insurance, the companies are trying to make a profit. They do this by giving you less whenever possible. They lure you in by things like dental and health clubs. But you've already seen the problem crop up with your medigap policy, underwriting. Talk about the good old days, they are back. So when you find that you can't see the doctor of your choice or the Advantage program is blocking a needed treatment, trying to go back to regular Medicare you will find yourself with a 20% copay or an absurd charge for medigap, just when you need it least. Advantage is only good if you can guarantee that you won't fall into this hole. There's only one way to guarantee this, die early.
While the basic information on investing for retirement, such as waiting until one is 70 to collect social security, is always good at HumbleDollar, it is disappointment that you have not mentioned the changing political landscape in which since the days of Reagan, the wealth imbalance has grown beyond anything we've ever seen in this country. Laws are now made that enable the already super rich to pump money continually upward. We're at the point where a very small wealth tax could easily close the social security gap you mention without the associated changes in work habits. Packing the Supreme court with reactionaries who've made money into free speech all but prevents the needed political change that might bring this about.
Comments:
For the first woman you mentioned I hope you reported the advisor to the authorities. I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure that the crime involved is either failure to fulfill one's fiduciary responsibility or elder abuse.
Post: Many Unhappy Returns
Link to comment from June 19, 2024
"and I fear readers wouldn’t object, especially if they didn’t know how the articles were generated." Uh oh! Seems like you might have opened a can of worms. ChatGPT: Please write me an article in the style of Jonathan Clements on the potential use of public AI sites such as ChatGPT and Copilot in the writing of interesting financial articles. :-)
Post: Man vs. Machine
Link to comment from May 25, 2024
With respect to #8, I discovered an obvious flaw in the way the ACA subsidy worked. If your income is low, but high enough you can't get medicaid you get a big subsidy. At a high enough income it goes away. At a certain income level, the rate at which the subsidy is removed is steeper. It's so steep that you can earn more but end up with less.
Post: Taxing Our Brains
Link to comment from December 20, 2023
I think the problem here is fish swimming in water but unware that it is there. People have to exersize good judgement in life, not just limited to spending habits, but spending addiction is a real thing. A first cousin of mine spent herself into the grave. She was never able to hold a job but lived off her parents. When they passed away she had a limited source of money. Instead of using it carefully, she manically spent it on makeup, clothes and hairdressers. In the end she was running a gofundme while living out of her car. She succumbed to an easily treatable medical condition because of her out of control situation. Another example is people addicted to gambling. This is a known disease and in responsbile societies such as in Europe, steps are taken to limit the damage of this type of behavior in casinos. In this country we provide nothing. Capitalism doesn't care where it earns money from nor what damage occurs in the process of obtaining it. We take an additional step with credit cards. We feed the addiction. Worse yet, we almost require the use of credit cards to establish credit for big items like cars and homes. Pointing the finger at people with irresponsible spending habits is a case of blaming the victim.
Post: House of Cards
Link to comment from October 7, 2023
Your are trying to hard to be fair. There's a simple way to diagnose the difference between traditional Medicare and Advantage plans. Behind Advantage are companies who only are there to make a profit. If you know that your golden years will be completely healthy and then you will just drop dead one day, Advantage is to your advantage. Otherewise, not so much. Who among us knows that for sure.
Post: Time to Decide
Link to comment from May 31, 2023
My own feeling is that Advantage is a sucker bet. Just as with the good old days of getting private insurance, the companies are trying to make a profit. They do this by giving you less whenever possible. They lure you in by things like dental and health clubs. But you've already seen the problem crop up with your medigap policy, underwriting. Talk about the good old days, they are back. So when you find that you can't see the doctor of your choice or the Advantage program is blocking a needed treatment, trying to go back to regular Medicare you will find yourself with a 20% copay or an absurd charge for medigap, just when you need it least. Advantage is only good if you can guarantee that you won't fall into this hole. There's only one way to guarantee this, die early.
Post: The Medicare Maze
Link to comment from May 3, 2023
While the basic information on investing for retirement, such as waiting until one is 70 to collect social security, is always good at HumbleDollar, it is disappointment that you have not mentioned the changing political landscape in which since the days of Reagan, the wealth imbalance has grown beyond anything we've ever seen in this country. Laws are now made that enable the already super rich to pump money continually upward. We're at the point where a very small wealth tax could easily close the social security gap you mention without the associated changes in work habits. Packing the Supreme court with reactionaries who've made money into free speech all but prevents the needed political change that might bring this about.
Post: Late Shift
Link to comment from December 10, 2022