Subject: Re: First Withdrawal
Did done that late last fall myself after my severance stopped. A bit strange is right; because of an unplanned extravagance we withdrew almost a year's worth of plan in 6 months. The price of medical (me) & dental insurance (both), while academically understood, is shocking when it starts hitting every month.

Now I've gone back to fulltime w*rk for ~~another year, signif lower salary than last j*b but 87% lower cost of insurance.

Have you seen the discussions about the ACA (Obamacare) and dental insurance?

If you keep your income low enough - generally easy to do in retirement* - you will qualify for very substantial health insurance subsidies, even after the enhanced subsidies went away this year.

We use a Bronze high-deductible ACA plan. This year we qualified for HSA accounts. We do pay a lot out of pocket.

For dental we have an Aetna discount card that gets us better rates at our dentists. We don't have insurance.

* Though I have a friend, retired Ortho surgeon, who says the dividends from his taxable Bogleheads portfolio puts him and his wife over the income limits for an ACA subsidy. Not a terrible problem to have, and fixable (buy Berkshire).