Could your name cost you coverage?

Good afternoon. The number you're assuming is right, a retirement target, an inheritance, a medical claim, is often the one you haven't actually checked. Today's issue is about the gap between what people assume and what's actually true.

On The Money Today:

Let's get into it.

Earning $12,000 a month in retirement sounds like the middle-class dream: cover the bills, travel, eat out without checking the balance first. But the savings required to actually generate that income safely is a much steeper number than most people expect, and inflation pushes it higher still.

Baby boomers are sitting on more collective wealth than any generation before them, and their kids have been counting on inheriting some of it. But new data shows a growing share of seniors are spending down everything before they ever pass a dime along, and healthcare is almost always the reason why.

Carrie Ann Weinberger Morneault never had a problem with her Medicare Advantage coverage, until Medicare's character limit on names started splitting her records across different names. That triggered denied claims for physical therapy and mammograms, and bills that went straight to collections. It's a paperwork glitch that could snag anyone with a long name, a hyphenated name, or a recent legal name change.

The answer is: B) 69 million — as of late 2025, roughly 69 million Americans were enrolled in Medicare, one of the largest federal programs in the country by enrollment. That number grows by about 100,000 people every month, and it's projected to top 80 million within the next decade as more Baby Boomers age into the program.