Posted on 05/11/2016 2:38:14 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The shrinkage of employee retirement resources in the US has been well documented, as employers shift more risk onto their workers. Less so is the rate at which employers have been eliminating healthcare benefits for retirees. As the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported, retiree health coverage is becoming an endangered species.
"Employer-sponsored retiree health coverage once played a key role in supplementing Medicare," observe Tricia Neuman of the foundation. "Any way you slice it, this coverage is eroding."
The chances of reversing this trend, plainly, are nil. But it's important to keep an eye on it, if only as a reminder that the challenges of federal healthcare policy don't end when Americans age out of the employer and individual markets subject to the Affordable Care Act, and join Medicare at age 65. Limiting healthcare costs for the elderly is certain to become an ever greater concern, as baby boomers age into retirement.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“Limiting healthcare costs for the elderly is certain to become an ever greater concern, as baby boomers age into retirement.”
Cue the death panels.
Wouldn’t all elderly be on medicare anyway?
Yeah, ours is getting slashed more every year.
Yes, but at that point, retiree health care becomes the "medigap" insurance to supplement Medicare.
Without it, you have to buy your own medigap insurance, or live with the Medicare limits.
Unless a person is on PERA.
Medicare covers seniors so why should companies ?
See my post #5. Once someone becomes eligible for Medicard, employer-provided retiree insurance becomes "medigap", i.e. it only covers what Medicare doesn't, up to the limits provided by the plan.
Other than Cat or Deere I was unaware that any retiree health coverage existed. Gonzo for most Americans, and has been so for at least a decade.
I clearly worked for the wrong employer(s) my working career.
Yes, I guess though the concern is loading Medicare up even more.
Maybe of the legacy technology companies (like Hewlett Packard and IBM) have retiree healthcare. But, they are starting to phase it out. I know someone that is retiring at the end of this year because her employer is ending retiree health care for people that retire starting in 2017.
I think that’s one of the reasons companies are so anxious to off-shore. They don’t have to worry about paying for off-shored employees healthcare.
That’s why there needs to be a way to decouple health insurance from employment, and get companies out of the business of managing their employees’ health insurance.
They would not be cutting them if Obamacare had not made the costs double or triple
Ending retiree healthcare insurance doesn't add anything to Medicare, because the company-sponsored insurance becomes "medigap" insurance once the retiree is eligible for Medicare.
All it does is make the employee responsible for paying the full cost of "medigap" insurance, if they choose to buy it. Depending on the extent of the company's subsidy, that can be quite a bit of money.
Some companies also provide health insurance for early retirees before they turn 65. Without it, an early retiree would have to buy their own policy from the "exchange" or elsewhere. It's expensive.
Retiree healthcare was already on the decline, but I think this has accelerated it.
In order to comply with Obamacare, companies have had to modify their policies to add additional mandated coverage -- increasing their costs significantly.
It's another one of those "unintended" consequences.
Of course the intention is to break things so bad that people will demand Single-Payer.
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