My sister was a HI public school teacher for decades. As a retirement benefit, she has fully paid insurance AND paid medicare A&B for life!
We are fortunate that we have 75% of our family medical insurance paid for our lifetimes as part of H’s retirement benefits and remaining portion is paid out of H’s pension. H worked 45 years for the fed govt.
Everyone should research what their employer offers retirees in terms of health insurance coverage. Unfortunately, the reality is that most folks don’t have full medical coverage like this…or that of federal employees.
+1 to this comment. Count your blessings if you’ve had post retirement coverage. Count your options ahead of time and don’t assume your employer has a golden ticket!
The reality is that most don’t have retirement medical. And… some of those who do might not have same by the time they retire. But like you say it’s important to know what is and is not available. Also important to know that reaching age 65/Medicare (or Medicare Advantage), there will still be costs.
To qualify for MEDICAID your income will have to be VERY, VERY low. And financial assets will factor in.
Also, retiring early, barring a medical condition, is a choice. If you cannot afford health care until you turn 65 then you will have to continue working.
Federal government employees can work as little as five years, retiring at 62 and get those same lifetime healthcare benefits in retirement.
Many state and county governments also have plans that follow into retirement.
The nice retirement benefits helped H put up with the low pay he received (compared to contractors and others with similar skill sets with other employers).
My sis was a teacher with the state for many years. They reduced the insurance benefits to more recently hired employees so it’s not quite as generous.
Even if you had retirement medical benefits, they can be discontinued if the company chooses. My dad had medical for life in retirement … until, 10 years into retirement, the company decided to discontinue retiree medical after 65 (and charge more for benefits between retirement & 65 than had been agreed upon when employees took early retirement packages). Retirees sued, but the company won.
Yes. That’s sort of what happened to us, though now I’m thinking this happened before ACA was out into effect. Because they jacked the rates so high nobody could afford it without warning. And while that stinks for everyone, at least those who haven’t retired yet can keep on working. At the time those who has just retired but not Medicare age were stuck. Many (if not most) were too sick with pre-existing conditions that nobody would cover them. I felt terrible for them.
I guess now with the ACA at least there is SOME option that’s more affordable than ours.
And it also could happen with pensions in the old days. h’s grandfather worked somewhere for over 40 years. 6 months into retirement they went bankrupt and he lost everything.
Same thing happened to my mom. Mom was a state employee.
My husband’s company (so far) still offers early retiree health benefits but it ends at 65 now. They will give him a monthly amount to offset his supplemental. It won’t be as good as the healthcare he presently has but it’s very generous. We are very grateful for what we do have so I’m not complaining.
@deb922 - that sounds like what I received from my employer.
It was especially sweet to me because I worked in a division of our company which did not get this benefit for a long time. Of course the directors and above in my division got taken care of as did some employees who had previously worked in the other division. But the company was bought out and the new owners called it out as unfair (yay!). I ended up benefiting but my friend who retired 2 years before me did not.
What’s really unfair is that some people have to self-fund $25,000+/year and other similarly situated people do not, all depending on who happened to employ them and that employer’s particular policies during the critical time period.
And of course the reason many people desire to retire before 65 in the first place is out of concern for their health — it creates the catch 22 of you don’t really feel healthy enough to keep working, but have to keep working anyway to receive health care. But only for those without the employer retiree benefits. What a screwed-up system.
Good points.
When we first started to consider our early retirements, we know our expenses (disregarding college payments, 401K savings) would be about the same as I’d been tracking. So it was an eye opener to know we might have an extra $2k/month for self-pay health insurance. It became obvious that I’d need to work at least until my older husband hit 65/Medicare.
My brother is concerned about his options. He and older Sis are both >65, so qualify for Medicare A&B.
My other sibs are covered by their (or spouse’s) employer—HI teacher’s retirement package, Kaiser MD retirement package, and us by H’s fed govt retirement package.
We are very fortunate and know it but wish medical coverage wasn’t so tied to work. It just makes life so complicated and expensive for way too many, forcing so many to keep working for med insurance when they’d be happier & healthier retired.
At the same time, so many people are against national health insurance. I think it should be a basic right of every American to have health insurance, independent of work/income. It is an additional tax I would be willing to pay. I think at the end of day it maybe less expensive to us if medical care is available to everyone.
We as a society do pay a lot more in poor health (especially chronic conditions which could have been lessened if caught and treated much, much earlier). We need to do so much better in helping educate, provide good healthcare and education for all within our borders.
My 6 sibs have 3 of them (or spouse) teachers and a 1 retired HMO md, and H as retired fed employee that have future medical covered, which was a factor in careers and employers. It shouldn’t have to be this way.
Why is he concerned?
Agree. Medicare has been great for DH.