One of the great tragedies of modern society is that we have the ability to treat more conditions than ever before, but the healthcare is so costly that many people can’t afford it. For some senior citizens, the expense is so high that they don’t fill every prescription each month, or that they sacrifice things like heat or even food to get everything from the pharmacy.

While every case is different, there are some commonalities in the various situations faced by seniors. Working to anticipate and to deal with the issue of health care in our senior years is something that takes a broad base of preparation.

Shopping Around

Sometimes we get the idea that our healthcare expenditures are in the non-negotiable category–if you want the service or product, this is how much you pay. And while many of us do have only a limited number of options on the plans themselves, we do have flexibility in how we utilize them.

Medication is a good example. Despite the convenience of the big-box store that just happens to feature a pharmacy, it isn’t always your most affordable choice for medication. Companies that specialize in pharmaceuticals, like Lowest Med, are more experienced in cutting your costs because medications are a primary focus for them, not something they happen to sell between cat food and greeting cards.

There are cheaper ways to get many of the things needed for our health, and the great part is that you only have to find them once to use them permanently.

Working Around

Sometimes it’s best to find a back-door solution that lets you work around the high costs of health insurance.

This option may literally involve working. Many of us reach a plateau in our pensions and other post-retirement earnings, at which we don’t get significant benefit from working any longer. Unfortunately, that may also include healthcare, which could remain expensive for us. In this case, you might do well to retire and then get another job with health insurance. This is particularly appealing to folks who don’t really want to quit working anyway.

That choice is just one of several viable solutions to high premiums and poor coverage. Before you assume that you’ll be stuck with those conditions in your golden years, investigate some of the ways around those problems.

Prevention

It’s still true that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and this is especially true for health care. While many seniors and retirees can afford their premiums, they often get financially tripped up by massive copays on necessary medications that wouldn’t have been so necessary if they had taken certain healthy steps in previous years.

Losing weight, watching cholesterol, and getting regular exercise can go a long way toward preventing the need for countless medications in old age. Some health plans even pay for things like tobacco cessation, so when the copayments would have run into the hundreds each month, the payoff is obvious.

It is a frightening thought to imagine that you won’t be able to care for your health after 30 or more years of working. It’s an issue that has been struggled with on the federal level since at least the 1990’s, yet there remain many people who just cannot get their coverage or copays to a point that they can sustain with their current incomes.

No one wants to be part of that statistic, but the good news is that even as Washington and 50 different state houses struggle with the issue, you can still be taking action that will positively impact your ability to meet all your needs–health included–when your working days are done.