Wonder if Walmart greeters get health insurance? I’d imagine there are plenty of retirees working part time jobs just for healthcare (that is, if those kind of benefits even exist anymore).
Dh and I pay a total of $20,000 per year for health insurance. Our plan coverages are the same with each of our deductibles around $3,750 (I think??). However, my plan costs more because I chose one with a much broader network. Dh opted to save some $ by choosing a smaller network. If we both had the plan with the larger network, we would be at a total cost of $24,000 per year. As I have mentioned before on this thread - absolutely the single biggest retirement expense we have. We are mid-50s so many years to go. As I have always written on here before, I just hope we are able to continue to purchase it.
@busdriver11 I’ve wondered that too - if there are part time jobs available to get access to a decent plan. We would like to retire in 3 years, 15 years before being eligible for Medicare. Health care is our only barrier right now. To that extent I would be open to medicare for all with a private option. But thats politics so I won’t say more.
From what I have seen, government positions are the most likely to have the lowest weekly hour requirements to qualify for benefits. And the benefits tend to be better deals in terms of cost.
I work SOLELY for the health insurance benefit - if it weren’t for the health insurance, I would have retired last year, if not before. Even so, I plan to retire next year when I’m 62.5 years old, use COBRA for 18 months, and then take my chances for a year with a private plan/the exchange/whatever. (Luckily DH will turn 65 next year so Medicare will help with his insurance.) I have Type I diabetes so I definitely need the coverage.
It makes me angry that I “have” to keep working because I need the access to (cheap-ish) health insurance. I fully expect to pay big bucks for my insurance, but what scares me even more than the cost is the possibility of some kind of reversal of coverage of preexisting conditions.
Hospitals as well as school districts sometimes have part time jobs with benefits. Sometimes I have considered working as a school aid for a year, part time after retirement. With holidays and weekends off, it sounds do able for a time. I used to love my time working in the classrooms and sometimes one on one when mine were young, even the difficult kids, though the stories I hear now are hair curling.
The COBRA cost of the plan I have through my employer (PPO, $500/1000 ind./family deductible, $4k OOP max) is approaching $30K per year. ETA: my share is about $9K/year, my employer picks up the rest.
I’ve looked on the exchange for ACA plans, and for two people our age, we are looking at about $24-26K premium+deductible, and the OOP max can add another $10-12K on top of that. There are more expensive plans, up to $48K/year, but I don’t know why anyone would ever buy one of these. I haven’t compared in detail to see what the differences are. And these all seem to be HMOs.
I’ve been told that you can get better plans than what are on the exchanges by going through an agent. If Congress ever gets rid of the pre-existing condition stuff, we might be in big trouble.
I agree that an insurance agent specializing in health insurance is the way to go.
I know tons of people who have jobs that do NOT provide any health insurance, so if that’s something you’re counting on, be very careful. Employers around here either have people work part time or call their workers independent contractors to avoid offering health benefits.
You could check how many credits you need to carry to buy insurance with your nearby state U or CCollege and see what insurance policies they offer.
My sister is continuing to work so she can carry health insurance for their family, including their youngest S who is a sophomore in college. Once he has his own job & policy she plans to retire.
Now that is a really interesting thought, never heard anyone mention that before. Perhaps one could take classes part time to qualify for student health insurance. Hmm…just what I need, another degree.?
My friend has 4 daughters and he said he needed to make sure to have 100K each for their weddings, in addition to college, before he can retire. We didn’t think about budgeting wedding cost for retirement, kinda assumed that it’s part of the big pile of money when we retire.
I don’t blame you. It is the the single biggest impediment I know to people who want to retire before age 65. It also makes me wonder how your decision (and those similarly situated to you) to continue working impacts the overall economy. We just decided to take the risk. I think there is also a risk that the age for eligibility to Medicare will get pushed back sometime before we get there, so we may be paying longer than the ten years we planned for.
^^ I am still angry - my beloved MIL was not in good health and we begged her to retire, told her we would pay for the whatever the cost until she was illegible for whatever it was. But she was so stubborn and so worried about the healthcare cost she wanted to wait until she was 62. Then she passed away just a few months before she turned 62, on a stress induced heart attack. I just can’t get over it. She was more a mom to me than my own mother.
[quote=“busdriver11, post:16509, topic:1586417”]
I think it is very challenging to find part-time work with benefits these days.
Health insurance is a giant unknown. Luckily, Mr. is only about 1.5 years from Medicare, and I - for now - have access to decent plans through my employer. I plan on working until past Medicare eligibility… but who knows what the future will bring.
If more folks had access to affordable healthcare, it would free up a lot of jobs for the youngsters, I agree.
Doesn’t Starbucks offer health insurance to its baristas?
@busdriver11, I knew someone who was a school bus driver for the health insurance. I think she said she got the middle of the days free, didn’t work holidays, summer, snow days, etc., so really wasn’t a bad gig.
I know someone who was lunchroom monitor, likely also for benefits. I think she suffered significant hearing loss. Being around kids also means exposure to lots of colds, which can be a concern for folks with medical conditions.
Our hairdresser works for the school. She gets benefits but finds the bickering and infighting among staff very tiring.
“Whoa, 24K for a high deductible plan? I’m hoping at least that’s for two people.” - Sounds about right.
Based on retirement planning discussions and reading, I think we used $20k (or $24k?) per couple for retirement planning scenarios spreadsheet, IF we had years where both retired and none on Medicare. By design, we won’t have that scenario. It was a big reason I am working a bit longer, waiting for retired DH (7 years older) to go on Medicare in May. Then I’ll have COBRA and a then a few years coverage via employer healthcare fund (created when they obsoleted pensions/retirement healthcare). After that a few years from FHA. Then almost at Medicare 
Those in a union may be able to put money into a fund to pay the insurance costs until you reach 65. Our uncle did that (he was a union electrician) and retired a few years before 65 because he paid in a premium on his last couple of working years to pay the health insurance until he/his wife were 65.
IMHO keep your high paying job if you can until Medicare eligible. If you can’t but can afford the insurance, great. If you know your job is going to get cut, try to find a job with health insurance to go to. An employer doesn’t want to hear you saying you are working just for the insurance - many of those jobs they want someone that they hire in for a while and w/o turnover - they want someone who is happy on the job/gets along well with coworkers.
H is only a few months older than me. Oct 2021 we are both 65 and we can then both retire. There are stresses with every job. If one finds themselves out of a job and need the insurance, yes there are some jobs 30 hours/week with insurance; the school systems offering affordable coverage; others. The benefit of a school system is usually 9 month employee.
The stress on my job (they piled additional responsibilities on and I was not comfortable managing the additional work load) was getting where I was planning to retire, but they offered me a better job that limited the stress because the job scope was limited. It is better for our family finances for me to keep working and collect SS at a later time.
One wants to keep their health, and have enough money for ‘living’ in retirement.
So sorry about the heart issue before age 62. There are better treatments if one gets with the right cardiologist. So many women get under treated or no treatment/un-diagnosed. Now there are more stents going on than bypass - effective and less invasive.
I made a mistake with a Dr that almost cost me my life - I went from stage I to stage III aggressive cancer in 10 weeks due to his misdiagnosis and failure to move up a test 10 weeks. My mother was dying and I trusted a doctor I should not have trusted - I should have trusted my gut instead.
We are watching H’s health so if he gets the cancer his two uncles died of (one at age 69, one at age 74) doesn’t kill him. He has some additional testing this month. Fortunately he is in good hands.
There certainly are a range of financial situations on this thread. What works for one may not work for another. What one is willing to sacrifice, another is not.
Time, energy, money drive our lives…
@busdriver11 - Walmart no longer employs “greeters”; they’ve been replaced by loss prevention personnel, whose job is to report suspected shoplifters to the security staff.