why does it cost so much?
 

Richie: On average, over 50% of a person's lifetime medical costs will happen in their last 2 years of life. Can you imagine how much your BC/BS plan will cost later on in your 60s & 70s?

Since private insurers have a tendency to kick people off their plans once they are no longer profitable (their first loyalty being to the shareholders), who would insure my 90-year-old grandmother or even my 66-year-old mother?

This is the problem with a 100%-private plan under the rules that corporations operate these days. Of course there are problems galore with 100%-public plans but it would *appear* that hybrid plans (like France and Switzerland have) work better.

Right!
 

Absolutely correct, DJ. I attended a meeting just last month wherein the presenter showed the results of a nationwide study that has been going on for over a decade. The results were that every single person in the U.S. will on average spend just a few dollars less than $249,000 on medical care during the last two years oif their lives. The point being made was that, unless one wants to try to "play the averages", arrangements should be made for either long-term insurance or a residential program that will assure such care regardless of financial circumstance. (The presentation was not by an insurance agent!)

From several instances of personal experience, I have experienced and observed such spending on those I've known. The healthcare industry knows very well where lots and lots of their money is made--on old people within a couple of years of the ends of their lives. There was lots of criticism of "death panels" and "killing grandma" during the debate preceding the passage of Obabmacare. Realistically, if healthcare spending is to be controlled and reduced, there probably should have been even more discussion and debate. If the costs of prolonging life for just a year or two using expensive and extraordinary measures are so great (and so profitable to various participants in the healthcare industry, by the way), it's possible that getting overall healthcare spending under control calls for control--intelligent "rationing" if you will--of spending that prolongs life if not the quality of life.

Before you ask--statistically, I'm within several years of when I could normally expect to be subject to any such changes that might occur in healthcare insurance.