It's an unfathomable number, Jabber. And I had high hopes that Obama's efforts were going to REDUCE our health care costs, not INCREASE them.

And, since the Social Security Administration DID announce a COLA -- Cost of Living Adjustment -- for 2012, I am aware that the official word is that our market basket costs increased in 2011. We all know that, just from looking at the shrinkage in what a dollar buys at the grocery store these days.

Now I'm no economist or financial whiz, but when the Fed's COLA increase is a mere 3.6%, a 10.5% increase in my costs for health care seems onerous.

I am recommending to Steve that we scale back the health insurance program we select for 2012, so that we can bring our health insurance increase back more in line with that 3.6% figure.

Like you, as self-employed business owners, we pay 100% of our health insurance expenses. I think we're both pretty healthy - knock on wood.

But "healthy" is a trickier word as we all continue to age.

So many of the health challenges we Boomers are encountering with aging are chronic. With challenges like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, or even something as major as a heart replacement, it seems that as long as one takes their maintenance drugs - (or in the case of the sleep apnea, uses their PAP machine when sleeping) - you're "cured" and pretty much able to live a full life. Lose the access to the maintenance drugs and the picture dramatically changes.

Wasn't the news this week about the unavailability of some drugs really scary? Locally, one Iowa TV news station interviewed a woman who had a heart replacement 10 years ago. She talked about going to Walgreen's to get her prescriptions refilled for the month, and being told that some of them would not be available for a month!

She told the pharmacist she would not be ALIVE in a month. Being as Walgreen's is a big place, they called around to other pharmacies for her, but to no avail.

Eventually she contacted the University of Iowa hospitals and was able to drive to the hospital in Iowa City to get her meds. But it was a 180 mile trip.

And based on what she's been told, she's worried that it is a trip she'll have to make again in a month.

YIKES! What is our country coming to? That sounds like story from a third world country...

Anne