When I turned sixty years old, I was able to retire from my job as business manager at Darby Public School. At sixty years old, you can collect the public employee’s retirement. This all worked for me because of the affordable care act market place insurance. I did not have to work to afford health insurance. I would qualify for a health insurance subsidy on the market place. For $260 per month, I had $9,000 deductible bronze-level health insurance. The end.

No, not the end. My health insurance for the exact same insurance in 2026 will now cost $1,160 per month. Do the math. The new monthly fee times 12 months, plus the annual deductible, means I would spend $22,920 to use my affordable health care insurance. Per year! HAHAHAHA! My public employee’s retirement is $21,600. Ok, let’s say I never use it. Then I would spend $13,920 per year for the possibility of maybe needing health insurance.

I canceled it.

But I’m sixty-one, healthy, but still, sixty-one. I should have health insurance. I don’t want to lose my house if I need major health care. In January 2026, I had no health insurance. There was still one more deadline to sign up for the year. I called my insurance agent, whom we use for the cars and house. He shut me down in two seconds. He had nothing better to offer. Bye.

I reached out to another retired, now self-employed friend, to see what he used. I called the woman’s number he gave me. The reviews for her insurance were horrible. You paid $500 a month, and then if you went to the doctor, they would give you $100. It seemed to be more of a supplemental addition to catastrophic. Plus, I had to qualify. Had to be healthy. They requested my records from my primary care provider. They were worried about my one prescription, a migraine abortive prescription that I take once or twice a month. I called and said forget it. This is too weird and not what I’m looking for.

I could get a job with insurance again.

I know that kids can be on their parents’ insurance until they are twenty-six years old. Too bad they don’t let retired sixty-year-olds on their adult kids’ insurance. That’s what I need. I’d pay them for it. Venmo.

There is one more level lower than bronze. Catastrophic. For only $700 a month, I could get a $10,600 deductible insurance that covers mostly nothing until you spend $10,600 per year on health care. Plus the premium. Do the math again. $700 times 12 equals $8,400 plus $10, 600 equals $19,000 out of pocket per year if I needed it. Better to use it at the first of the year, not the end of the year, as that would be another $10,600 in the new year.

Last year, I spent almost $1000 out of pocket on health care, but that’s only because I got a mammogram for the second time in my life, as a preventative measure, but they had to do another one because my breasts are dense. Normally, I would only spend $250 on medical, and that’s just to cover the labs for my annual check-up (this total is not counting eye exams, glasses, and teeth cleanings, as those are not considered health care but a privilege).

What could I cut out to make up the difference between my old health insurance cost of $260 to my new insurance cost of $700? I need an extra $440 per month just to be covered. I could have no eye exams, no new glasses, no teeth cleanings, no gym membership, no mammogram, but I don’t think it’s enough.

I wish health insurace was based on my heart rate, blood pressure, and labs instead of my age. I can bench 85 pounds; does that count for anything? I just biked 21 miles after lunch. I backpacked 55 miles in 5 days last year. Does this help me? Nope, I’m a statistic.

Here is a photo of my old, feeble friends backpacking in Glacier National Park. Maybe my insurance costs so much because I backpack in grizzly bear country and participate in multiple sports in which I wear a helmet: snowboarding, biking, and kayaking.

I signed up to be a substitute teacher at the school. I just need to work 7 days a month at $14.29 an hour to make up the difference and cover the summer months. I’m not very good at it. Let me know if you have any part-time work.

I just got back from Patagonia, Arizona, twenty miles from the Mexican border. I rode my bike towards Lochiel for thirty miles on a dirt road. The only traffic on the road was the border patrol trucks and giant oversized loads of equipment and steel for the wall. I see now why the subsidies had to be cut. There was a lot of taxpayer money going down that dirt road.

I’m reading an amazing book right now. “The Lost Journals of Sacajawea” by Debra Magpie Earling. She wrote “Perma Red”, a past recommendation on the Wild About Books blog. Lost Journals is a novel, told from Sacajawea’s point of view. It is a difficult book to get started on. The writing is not traditional. The author is transforming your brain to follow in a way of writing that makes you feel as if you are a Native American. It’s like learning a new language, but not. You wonder what the heck is going on. Keep reading. Your brain will catch up, and you’ll find yourself not only following along but unable to put the book down. It is horrific. A story of misogyny, power. control, greed. We know it well. Seems to be the American way.

I highly recommend “The Lost Journals of Sacajawea”, it is a challenge to read and for sure not a “beach book.”

More great adventures (or rants) and book recommendations can be found at Wild About Books.

Stay healthy.