Many of us are virtually working for our lives, with the rising cost of health care, savings, investment portfolio and pensions, which took the majority of our lives to build, can vanish quickly. Retirement plans must now factor in more for healthcare concerns: Can taxes controlled by Governments or premiums managed by private sector insurance companies provide for an appropriate or the necessary level of long-term diagnosis, treatment and medication expense.The majority of us will age without suffering any serious medical conditions until we can least afford it. So contributing financially, directly or indirectly, to health insurance plans during your productive years should yield benefits later on. But the reality is we cannot depend on public or private sector insurance only, due to inflation and other unknowns, we will have to use other financial resources. Interest and dividend income, as a result of your investment portfolio and pension plans, is to replace the take home salary or income you previously brought in during your working life and hence, this is to pay for living expenses.
When diagnosed with a treatable medical condition requiring a hospital stay, surgery, short-term recovery and medicine for pain and to prevent infections, the cost can be calculated. Subtracting what is covered by insurance, if anything, leaving you with a medical loan which can be repaid with interest, with part of your portfolio and pension income. If not, the financial support of family is needed to repay the debt. Without family support many charities exist to help, asking only that after recovering you volunteer to serve.
When diagnosed with a chronic disease requiring medical specialist visits and medicine for the rest of your life, this cost is unpredictable. So, loans are out of the question and unless you had private sector insurance before you were diagnosed - no new private sector insurance coverage can be obtained and although many public health systems do try to provide cheap or free testing and treatment, it cannot guarantee the timeliness of supply (the long waits to see a prescribing doctor and no medication available at this time) or the quality of the treatment (these free or cheap medicines are usually not potent enough from every patient), again, leaving it to family or charities to provide long-term support.
Rich today and poor tomorrow, due to life style diseases, pharmaceutical companies do invest heavily on research and development and must be allowed to earn a reasonable return on investment to continue their work. The generic pharmaceutical companies, that offer cheaper and older medicines, also have its place. Hence controlling health cost, from what we presently know, is to change lifestyles, not in this generation, perhaps in the next, starting with today’s’ children. The style of excessive smoking of cigarettes and drinking alcohol, eating irregularly and not a balanced meal, not sleeping on a habitual basis, having multiple sex partners, not having regular medical examinations and living in a stressful environment without much physical activity, brings to mind a block buster movie.
Rationale
T.A.J & Associates Company Limited uses this occasion to comment on topics that have been covered, both academically and by the mainstream media, to add its opinion and point out investment opportunity, not to invoke any social action.
