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Again, I ask how people who retire prior to Medicare age handle the health insurance issue?
I have talked to people who have retiree health insurance, which I will never have.Maybe that's it? Paying out of pocket for years and years seems extremely expensive. A neighbor of mine pays for his insurance, wife and two kids, good coverage, and it's $1200/month, and I think he belongs to a small business group or something.
Might I ask how people handle this?
I have a High Deductible Healthcare Plan and an HSA account. The premiums are $400 a month (going up to 460 next year) that covers two healthy adults in late fifties. The deductible is $3500 so our annual health care costs can easily be $9,000 a year. Not many other choices unless you are a vet or got a plan from an employer.
We are blessed and both have continued employee health care with our employer paying 90%
That is nice.
Our plan is also fairly good. It costs me $950 each year to enroll, and we pay $20 co-pay for each visit.
We are very fortunate to now live far enough outside of my previous employer's normal area, if we still lived within their radius, then they provide a much lower quality of care. But it is much better now
We're starting late with our retirement plans in our mid '40s but, we both are state employees with good pensions so ...
Our combined pension income in 20 years should be about $9K a month in today's dollars (about $4,500 each give or take). We will get some SS but we're not counting on it.
If I get promoted as I hope over the years, it could be $10-11K since the pay increases would also increase my pension. Luckily, the pension plan covers about 90 percent of health insurance costs also.
We're hoping to save and grow our 401K to $500K in the next 20 years to supplement that. By age 65 we'll owe $60K on our mortgage but are planning to be free of all other debt.
At that point we'll either pay off the mortgage or, look at selling the house (depending on how much it's worth) and move someplace cheaper.
However, if all else fails and our plans get off track for whatever reason ... I'll guess I'll keep working until I can't walk anymore ...
I too have wondered how one would find coverage before Medicare kicks in. I know that AARP has some bridge coverage but I don't know the details. Also, I think there are some organizations that have some sort of group coverage such as professional or educational groups.
You can always pay out of pocket. Pay and pay and pay. I also don't know about not being covered for pre-existing conditions, or having lousy coverage, like an annual low maximum for certain life-saving treatments, etc.
I know medical people who have run into this, who know a lot about insurance and care and all. But when you have to pay $100/day for your Heparin even with a normal policy...
It's broken. It's just so broken.
Your right not to count on SS with being Gov't employees your pay will be reduced a great deal. My aunt is a retired school teacher and receives $98 from SS monthly, but she has decent pension to compensate that.
My husband works for the State also he opt out of SS back in 1982 so we have a large saving's account of what would have been invested into the SS plan but he is not vested so won't qualify for SS or Medicare. Once he retires he will have to go back to work for 1.5 years with an outfit that pays SS so he can be vested in the Medicare portion.
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