Fewer People Believe They Have Enough Money Saved To Cover Medical Expenses During Retirement

Main Category: Seniors / Aging
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 16 Apr 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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Twenty-five percent of U.S. retirees say they are very confident that they have saved enough money to pay for medical expenses during their retirement, compared with 41% in 2007, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual survey, the Wall Street Journal reports. For the survey, research firm Mathew Greenwald & Associates surveyed 1,257 U.S. residents. The survey found that 13% of current workers said that they are very likely to have enough money during retirement to pay medical expenses, compared with 18% in 2008 and 20% in 2007 (Tergesen, Wall Street Journal, 4/14).

Overall, 13% of respondents said they are very confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement -- a 14 percentage point drop from 2007 and the lowest-reported confidence level since EBRI began conducting the annual survey in 1993. Twenty percent of current retirees say they are very confident that they would remain financially secure during retirement, a 41% decline from 2007.

Workers cited the economy, inflation and high cost of living as reasons for the drop in confidence. Many workers also said they expect to delay retirement or would look for additional work after they retire from their current jobs (Trejos, Washington Post, 4/15). Jack VanDerhei, a survey co-author and research director at EBRI, said that 49% of people ages 55 and older have saved less than $50,000 for retirement and could face a "much lower standard of living in retirement than what they had hoped for" (Wall Street Journal, 4/14).

The report is available online.

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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