<p>It is ok to worry a tiny, tiny bit…</p>
<p>The govt is probably going to inflate 3 to 5 percent a year…</p>
<p>At 5 percent, in 28 years a cup of coffee that costs 2 bucks today will cost around 8 bucks.</p>
<p>But if it is 3 percent a year…hey… it takes 48 years to get to 8 bucks a cup. I am going to be dead or very old with no teeth in 48 years. Either way, I won’t be able to eat solid food.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, do you have a genetic tendency toward dental problems?</p>
<p>In 1997, 26.7% of people age 75 and up have lost all of their natural teeth.
[Total</a> Tooth Loss Among Persons Aged Greater Than or Equal to 65 Years – Selected States, 1995-1997](<a href=“Total Tooth Loss Among Persons Aged Greater Than or Equal to 65 Years -- Selected States, 1995-1997”>Total Tooth Loss Among Persons Aged Greater Than or Equal to 65 Years -- Selected States, 1995-1997)</p>
<p>Well… I will be 105 so I am trying to be realistic about my teeth. </p>
<p>How old will u be in 48 years?</p>
<p>Mid-90s</p>
<p>But I will try to keep my natural teeth.</p>
<p>You are so young. You are practically a baby.</p>
<p>Ha!
I will ONLY be 104.</p>
<p>102–better keep flossing.</p>
<p>Ha, ha. I just had a talk with a very blunt endodontist who has been making a tidy sum off of me. I may well have my “natural” teeth at 105 if I live so long but they’ll be more unnatural than natural and with a tom of money poured into them. My fillings are coming loose and out and it’s root canal and cap time for me. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper to pull them all then get dentures. Partial bridges or trying to save a tooth here and there is prohibitively expensive. My teeth will have a lot invested in them. The older generation had it right in using gold for dental work. At least there was some residual value in them.</p>
<p>I think that the prices from my endodontist are quite reasonable. Typically $800 to $1,000 for a root canal. It’s a lot of labor, and high-tech equipment and some drugs. I personally look forward to augmentation. I don’t care if it’s original equipment or after-market.</p>
<p>I was also thinking about submitting an application for Google Glass. Still thinking about it. The deadline is the end of the month.</p>
<p>cpt --</p>
<p>I’m going through the same things that you are with my teeth. Thank goodness for our dental insurance which is actually better than most plans according to the dentist I go to.</p>
<p>I’m at the all my old fillings are falling apart and needing crowns or onlays now stage.
My dental covers about 50% with a 2K limit per year.</p>
<p>Guess I’ll have most done by retirement at this rate…which is good since
I get employer retirement health coverage (amazing) but NO dental.</p>
<p>People often don’t plan for dental work in retirement and are surprised how much they will need/spend over the years. Yes, it is expensive, but hopefully that root canal, crown or implant will be lifetime when done in your 70s if you continue to take care of your teeth.</p>
<p>I like to tell my patients that people who last the longest in assisted living and nursing homes have most of their teeth simply because they can eat better.</p>
<p>And a random note: for 2012, 45% of my patients had NO dental insurance/reimbursement and paid cash for everything.</p>
<p>I went through the fillings problems in my late 30s - early 40s and had them all replaced. I’d guess that insurance covered half of them (I wanted them done).</p>
<p>A co-worker told me that he gave his notice this morning. He gave three month’s notice. He has 14 years of experience in a code base that nobody else is familiar with but we can hire people to replace him but training someone from scratch means a lot of lost productivity in maintenance, support and development. His project leader and his manager asked him what they could do for him to stay on. He already negotiated working 32 hours a week for a full-time paycheck and I don’t think that money is the issue. He wants to enjoy the time that he has left. He’s 62 so we talked about Social Security and other things. He has enough cash to continue until he’s 65 or 66 and would then collect Social Security.</p>
<p>I also asked him about medical care and he asked me about Medicare and I said that he’d have to wait until he’s 65 or get a individual coverage which is $$$. He doesn’t have any preexisting conditions but I still think that it would be expensive. Fortunately he’s in excellent overall shape but has a few joint problems related to working out. We didn’t talk about dental coverage but I know that he’s had the odd filling or crown here or there.</p>
<p>I’m going to try to talk him into working something out so that he can keep working here - maybe as a consultant or adviser or project leader. I suggested that he work something out where he works 20 hours a week but gets full-time benefits. He can train people to take over his work and can manage new projects. We have a variety of employee arrangements with older employees and he’s valuable enough for us to work something out. He’s talked about quitting several times over the years and I’ve talked him out of it in the past as has his project leader.</p>
<p>I do think that he would be able to make it financially (he has one or two small pensions I think and a lot of cash) but I don’t think that he’s factored in all of the costs yet.</p>
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<p>I have dental coverage but I leave a credit balance at my dentist and my dentist knows that he’ll get paid, insurance or not and that I don’t wait for the next year to have something done just because my coverage runs out. I think that this makes it easier to get appointments on short notice. Dental problems can make your life miserable and I think that they can shorten your life and it’s definitely a priority in our family.</p>
<p>BC, does he have enough time in for retirement benefits from the company? We do the rule of seventy… Once your age plus years of service is seventy you can retire.</p>
<p>The biggest benefit to dental insurance is the negotiated pricing. The annual limits are low on what the dental coverage pays for but the savings just for having coverage are substantial.</p>
<p>Dental insurance, at least good dental insurance, is not cheap. I used to sell it… Was very good at selling it actually…</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID BIONIC using CC</p>
<p>Interesting thought about having a credit balance at the dentist. I have never thought to do that. We do have a good relationship, dentist is about our age and I have been seeing him since my second year out of college. We are aging together. They always accommodate our needs (college son needs to be seen when home from college, schedule around sports practices, etc.), and DH is there about two-three times a year, in addition to teeth cleaning. I sort of have the same relationship with the vet.</p>
<p>We are very fortunate. My H pays $260/year for an excellent dental insurance policy with Carefirst Blue Cross Blue Shield through his employer. This covers our entire family. It provides 100% coverage for almost everything if we go to an in-network dentist. Sometimes I have to go out of network to see an endodontist or oral surgeon. Only once have we exceeded the yearly maximum limit. And I’m a person who has lots of expensive dental work done. 
<< See my pretty teeth!</p>
<p>I have no idea how much it would cost to get private dental insurance.</p>
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<p>I actually don’t know what our company retirement benefits are. We have some drug plan that I know of but I don’t know whether we have anything else. It’s too far away on my radar screen.</p>
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<p>My dentist is not on my insurance companies list and he charges more than R & C for some things. In some cases my insurance covers his charges and it doesn’t in other cases so I just pay the difference.</p>
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<p>Ours is inexpensive, at least what the employee pays.</p>
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<p>The reason I do that is the problem with dental insurance taking so long to decide on reimbursement. If they don’t cover something, then the bill is past due and I get dinged on the account - so I leave a credit balance just in case insurance doesn’t cover something or I go over my limit. Sometimes the balance is around $1,000. It’s usually somewhere between $100 AND $500.</p>
<p>My PT asst’s husband is retiring the end of April from a city government job. He is 62, she 59. While he will get a small pension (and they have no kids), they have not looked much farther than his last day. When he turns 63 this summer, he will start on SS.</p>
<p>I asked her about health insurance and she says they will get COBRA. She did not know that you don’t get it for years and Medicare is 65 as neither is disabled. They have both had health issues over the years and are overweight. As long as she works for me, her dental is covered, but I really think they have not planned this for the long term at all.</p>
<p>Being overweight is insidious - it may decrease your ability to work longer and can reduce your quality of life when you have more free time. It can also cause additional health issues. I strongly feel that dealing with weight issues is part of retirement planning that should be done in your 50s at the latest.</p>
<p>The planning part is hard as there are lots of things that you don’t know. I think that my friend is happy that various people have talked him out of retiring when he was younger. His case for retiring now is stronger but this thread has brought out several things that he may not have thought of.</p>
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<p>Dentures give you much less biting and chewing force than natural teeth (or expensive implants). This can restrict your ability to eat and enjoy foods. Indeed, it can have other health effects, like reducing your consumption of high fiber foods (many people do not get enough dietary fiber as it is).</p>
<p>Also, dentures may be more stable (not losing as much biting and chewing force) if you have some good natural teeth to stabilize them.</p>