$220,000 medical expenses after retirement?

[question everything]

8. Seems like it varies with the insurance plan

with ours, we pay $90 for a 3 months supply (mail order) of brand name, while the insurance pays the rest - $650 for Symbicort, for example.

But once the total costs of medications paid by us and the insurance reaches $2850, we are in the donut hole. Medicare pays half of brand name while we pay most of the generics. The insurance still pays some, not sure how this amount is determined.

To stay with the example of Symicrot which last year, was "only" $670 (it is $740 this year), while in the donut hole we paid $327, the insurance paid $17, and medicare paid $344.