HERE’S ONE OF THE most important lessons I’ve learned in retirement: Bad health will limit what you can do—or feel like doing—no matter how much money you have. Good health is the biggest determinant of how rich and fulfilling your retirement years will be.
You and you alone are responsible for your health care. It’s not your spouse, your children, your friends or your doctors. It’s you. Nobody should have to beg you to see a doctor.

HEALTH SAVINGS accounts (HSAs) were introduced in 2003, and have since become commonplace in employee benefit plans. My experience with HSAs dates to 2004, when my employer offered $400 in one-time seed money as an incentive to sign up.
HSAs differed from existing health-care flexible spending accounts, and offered some features I preferred. To me, the HSA’s most appealing feature was that I controlled the money. There’s no “use it or lose it” rule,

I FIGURED IT MUST have been the spaghetti from dinner at the dining hall. What else could have given me such sharp abdominal pains? Perhaps I had food poisoning that would eventually pass. That night back in the apartment, I couldn’t sleep due to the pain. I got up every half hour or so and headed to the bathroom. Strangely, I was unable to relieve myself. In addition to severe pain, I felt constipated.

MY WIFE AND I JUST finished watching the Netflix documentary Live to 100, which I highly recommend. The four-part series focuses on Dan Buettner’s study of pockets of people around the world who achieve amazing longevity, including many residents who live to age 100 and beyond.
The seven longevity locations include Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Loma Linda, California. These locations of long-lived people have been labeled “blue zones” based on the seminal demographic work on Sardinia by Giovanni Mario Pes,

I’M 64 AND PREPARING to sign up for Medicare next year. I’ve done extensive research, including earning the Retirement Income Certified Professional designation. I’ve also written articles for HumbleDollar on Medicare coverage, Medicare premiums, Medigap and health savings accounts.
In addition, I’ve befriended Medigap salespeople, advised others on which plans to choose, and asked those on Medicare for advice on their experience with the program. I feel as if I’ve been preparing to take the Medicare filing “exam,” and I’m excited to sign up.

ONE OF THE MORE challenging changes that comes with retirement is the loss of your employer’s health care benefits—and I’m not just talking about regular health insurance. Two other benefits that employers commonly provide are dental and vision coverage.
Traditional Medicare doesn’t cover common dental procedures, such as cleanings, fillings, extractions, dentures, dental plates and other dental devices. Medicare also doesn’t cover the cost of eyeglasses, lenses or contacts, which many of us were used to obtaining using our employer’s vision coverage.

I DON’T REMEMBER when my hearing started deteriorating. I suppose it came on gradually. I definitely remember when I developed tinnitus—ringing in the ears—and it was tinnitus that sent me to an audiologist in 2012.

She confirmed the information I’d already found on the internet: There’s no cure for tinnitus. While I would always miss the complete silence I’d previously enjoyed, at least mine was a tolerable background hum, unlike some horror stories I’d read.

MOST PEOPLE ON Medicare report that they’re very satisfied with their health care coverage—but the program is undoubtedly complicated. There’s an alphabet soup of plans, coverage choices, premium levels and enrollment rules.

While it’s easy to be flummoxed by the ins and outs of Medicare, think of it as “eating an elephant.” The only way to start is one bite at a time. Learn the basics first—by deciding whether you want original Medicare or Medicare Advantage.

PERHAPS YOU’RE TOYING with seeing a therapist to help you cope with, say, the transition to retirement or the loss of a loved one. How can you get the best return for the time and money you’ll invest? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer.
Early in my career, I was an academic psychologist whose area of specialty was the effectiveness of psychotherapy. I published many papers on the topic, and also presented several at the proceedings of the Society for Psychotherapy Research.

I JUST HAD ANOTHER reminder that, when managing our health and the costs that come with it, we need to be our own best advocates.
Last September, I started developing headaches. Every day, I’d wake up with a dull ache in my left temple area. The headache would often build during the day and, by evening, I was feeling washed out and pretty miserable.
I’m fortunate not to suffer from migraines, but tension headaches have been the bane of my existence for many years.

HOW MUCH DO WE PAY for Medicare? You might think that premiums would be fixed, like the prices on a restaurant menu. But instead, the correct answer is “it all depends”—on your income, which isn’t necessarily a good thing in our case.
It’s a fact of life: The more you make, the more you may have to pay for Medicare, the health insurance program for older Americans. Medicare calls its variable pricing system the income-related monthly adjustment amount,

IF MEDICARE’S A MAZE, its Part D drug plan is a maze within a maze, with no one good path and plenty of so-so choices, along with a couple of potential “gotchas.”

Until 2006, Medicare offered no coverage for outpatient drugs, so today’s situation—however imperfect—is certainly an improvement. It’ll improve even more for people with high drug costs in 2024 and 2025, as I’ll explain at the end of this article.

What if you have Medicare Advantage,

I NEVER SAW THE NEED to buy prescriptions from anywhere other than the local pharmacy until—for reasons that still aren’t clear—a medication I’ve been taking for years jumped in price.
Until January, I’d been paying $8.86 a month for the medication through my Humana Medicare Advantage plan. Suddenly, it jumped 200% to $26.85. In a series of calls, Humana agents gave me the following varied reasons:

The manufacturer increased the price.
I’d reached my donut limit for co-pays,

FOR MOST SENIORS, purchasing Medicare Part D prescription drug insurance is the right move—even if they don’t require any expensive medicines right now. The coverage insures against the risk of someday needing prescription medication that costs thousands of dollars and might be otherwise unaffordable.

The federal government subsidizes Part D, so it’s cheaper than purchasing stand-alone private drug insurance. Another good reason to enroll in Part D at the first opportunity: You avoid the penalty associated with a late sign-up.

I’LL BE TURNING 65 this year, so I’ve been researching my Medicare options. Even though I work in health care—and many of my patients are on Medicare—the task of choosing a plan is no less onerous for me.
I’ve read the information provided on Medicare.gov and watched numerous YouTube videos from insurance brokers. These brokers tend to support two types of Medicare coverage. Retirees might opt for a bundle that includes Medicare Part A,