The Biggest Surprise About (My) Retirement
My “retirement” isn’t even a year old—and for the most part, it’s played out pretty much as planned. There was, however, an area that caught us a bit flat-footed. For us (and this has very much been a joint effort between me and my wife), that surprise was…Medicare. Don’t get me wrong; to date the coverage has compared favorably with what we had pre-retirement—mostly because we coupled “standard” Medicare with a Medicare Advantage plan (which has actually provided some nice enhancements over our pre-retirement coverage). That said, here are some things we’ve learned along the way that we either didn’t know or hadn’t thought about “before”: Medicare isn’t free. Well, technically speaking, some of Medicare comes without additional premiums/cost, at least if you’ve worked at least 10 years and paid into that system. There are two “core” parts to Medicare; what are affectionately referred to as Part A (hospital coverage)—which is “free” (in that y...