The debate on the budget deficit has been pretty intense for the past couple of years. The main issue surrounding this debate has been healthcare, and rightfully so. According to the White House Budget Office, for the fiscal year 2012, the federal government collected about $2.5 trillion in revenue and spent over $900 billion on healthcare, which is more than a third of all tax receipts. The Medicare program (a health insurance program for people 65 or older, people under 65 with certain disabilities, and people with End-Stage Renal Disease) alone cost $545 billion, while Medicaid (a joint federal and state government healthcare program for people with limited means) cost about $250 billion. Despite this massive healthcare spending by the government, seniors continue to incur hundreds of thousand of dollars in out of pocket healthcare expenses during retirement. With the rising cost of healthcare and people living longer, the healthcare issue is not likely to disappear for the foreseeable future.

By Dinesh Sharma, CFP®, CEO of GoWealthPro Corp.
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