What Today's Seniors Are Spending on Healthcare -- and Why the Numbers Are So Disturbing

It's not a secret that healthcare is a major expense for seniors. In fact, for many retirees, it's their single greatest monthly expense. But new data from the Senior Citizens League reveals that older Americans are spending an uncomfortably large chunk of their income on medical expenses, and it's apt to be hurting them in a very big way.

A big reason healthcare constitutes such a burden for seniors is that its cost continues to outpace Social Security benefit increases. Medicare Part B premiums, for example, tend to rise every year, as do other out-of-pocket expenses that seniors are forced to bear. The problem, however, is that 48% of older households have no income outside of Social Security, and so they're forced to allocate a large chunk of their limited funds to an expense category that continuously seems to rise.

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Source Fool.com