Morningstar syndicated Morey Stettner's MarketWatch piece on the retirement risk most people never plan for: a health crisis. The median private nursing home room cost $11,294 a month in February 2026, and about 70% of people turning 65 today will need some long-term care.
My view, quoted in the piece: most people think of retirement risk in terms of market crashes. Healthcare is the one that actually derails the most plans I have seen. Markets recover on their own schedule. A multiyear care need consumes assets on a schedule nobody chose.
I walked through how I model it for pre-retirees. Three scenarios, run side by side: the most likely base case, a future with accelerated or historically high healthcare inflation, and a catastrophic case where one spouse needs extended care. A plan that holds in all three earns the client peace of mind. A plan that holds only in the first tells us what to fix, whether that is coverage, an earmarked reserve or a change in spending, while the options are still open.
The example I gave was a client who insists he and his wife will move to Vietnam, her home country, if either needs care, because $200 a day buys a very good life there. But what if he cannot travel? He is avoiding the reality. The plan has to work when the person who needs care cannot leave the country.
Model the scenario you least want to think about. Everything else in retirement planning is easier.
Read the full article at MarketWatch →
