THANKS, OBAMA: Social Security/Medicare has just notified us that the 2.8% cost-of-living increase for 2019 will actually result in a 2.3% decrease in our net monthly income due to a 49.4% increase in Medicare Parts B & D premiums.

To top it off, thanks to the booming economy that the former President just took credit for, our [401K] retirement savings are down 6.5% this year and our 2019 RMD (required minimum distribution) is estimated to be down by 4.9% despite the fact that the percentage required to be withdrawn is increased each year. [The RMD is the government's excuse for a 'wealth tax'; the money has to be withdrawn and taxed even if we don't need it.]



What really chaps my ass, though, is that after age 65, my choices for health care coverage (formerly known as health insurance) are exactly two:

(1) one size fits all Medicare, and
(2) self-pay.

The former stinks, and the latter is unaffordable because the former is major-league nontransparent (true, of course, outside of Medicare as well). We could have easily paid our medical expenses out-of-pocket, even at double Medicare's parsimonious reimbursement rates, were we allowed to opt-out of Medicare and simply purchase major medical (i.e., hospitalization) insurance.