When Vic Paganucci of Norwalk, Conn., was given a chance to take early retirement last spring, he jumped at it. He was weary of his two-hour commute to Wall Street and no longer enjoyed his job as an insurance broker.
But now, at 58, he's having second thoughts. In part, it's because he misses the fulfillment a job provides. But increasingly, money is a concern, too.
"I have no problem paying the bills, but the market seems to go down endlessly," he says. "Sometimes I wish I had looked for a job rather than just retiring."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/retirement/2008-08-26-retired-too-soon_N.htm
The President’s June 23rd press conference on health care reform aimed to address the plans of the administration and quell concerns over the substantial legislative changes. 
A recent article in The New Yorker titled “The Cost Conundrum,” seeks to answer the question of the connection between healthcare cost and quality through a case study of one of the most expensive health care markets in the country. McAllen, Texas, has one of the lowest household income averages in the country at twelve thousand per capita a year, yet, in 2006, Medicare spent almost twice the national average on expenses per enrollee, to the tune of fifteen thousand. What caused this extreme unbalance in healthcare expenses? Were the citizens simply less healthy? Or were they just receiving much better care? 