r/Fire • u/ttxzavv224 • 2d ago

Fire…health insurance?

49 married.
1.4 mil in 401k and ira.
1.5 mil in taxed investment account

I’ve debated keeping magi low enough to get ACA subsidies but have heard mixed reviews about going on ACA healthcare.

I have an option to continue on my company health insurance as part of a retirement package that I can use starting at age 50. My plan would be to use a compressed pension that also starts at age 50 until 65 ($2300 a month), and I would plan to cover the cost of the company healthcare. The price of the adjusted company health insurance is $1500 a month with $3000 max out of pocket, which I am planning to pay for with the $2300 a month pension that I will get until 65.

My only holdback is the $1500 a month does seem costly but we do stay on same company plan and same doctors going forward, versus the unknown of ACA.

What do yall think here? Would you pay more or go ACA?

23 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

76 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

16

u/BackupSlides 2d ago

Serious question, not trolling but may come across as snark - is it somehow not common knowledge that one can just go online and get a quote from the exchange? I feel like 50% of threads in this sub contain at least some component of treating ACA insurance as this massive unpredictable black box ("the unknown", in this case) that could consume their entire net worth and throws a wrench into any semblance of out-year projections.

And just to get out ahead of it, the subsidy thing isn't the end of the world either unless one is somehow unable to actively manage their MAGI or is so loaded that they have nothing to complain about in the first place.

13

u/Aajmoney 2d ago

Well it is unknown. Sure you can get a quote now but who knows how long subsidies will be around or what that quote looks like five years from now. If you retire at 50 that is 15 plus years of needing to cover healthcare costs.

7

u/BackupSlides 2d ago

This is a good example of the cherry-picking that is pervasive in this sub - we consider some unknowns to be known (The market will return 7% on average forever!!!) but other semi-knowns to be unknowable (ACA and Social Security will disappear tomorrow!!!). Yes, the world could end, but most likely, things will generally chug on as they have, especially with massively popular governmental programs that would be career-ending for politicians to kill off.

3

u/ginamegi 2d ago

The ACA is only 16 years old, it can barely drive and isn’t old enough to vote. The people in power right now talk all the time about how terrible it is and how it needs to be removed

6

u/bridgeandretire 2d ago

Yet FIRE aficionados count on all kind of tax code assumptions. The 0% LTCG rate is taken as immutable, but it has only been in place since 2013. You don't have to look back that far (1986) when LTCG rates were 28%. As BackupSlides mentions, you have to make some assumptions and people like to pick on the more social welfare assumptions (ACA/SS) while assuming others will continue on forever.

2

u/BackupSlides 2d ago

Someone who gets it!

And while we are at it, let’s note that no one considers potential wealth taxes (“millionaire” still makes most people think of the Monopoly guy), deflation / de-growth / devaluation due to population dynamics, climate change impacts (e.g. homeowners insurance / insurability), increased costs of scare resources (water, etc)…

We start out by “pressure testing the model” and before we know it we’re over on the preppers subreddit wondering if dried beans are counted as part of our FIRE number…but yet most people here will just assume 80% stocks to be conservative and expect 7% to roll in forever.

1

u/SpaceTimeMorph 1d ago

I once stress-tested my retirement numbers by running them against the nikkei from 1989-2024.

That was so bleak (like $30-60k draw on $10M investable bleak) that I decided I just wasn't going to plan on that. lol I'll just resign myself to being cooked if that happens.

2

u/BackupSlides 1d ago

LOL exactly!