[quote=flyer]Yes, BG, I am very grateful things worked out the way they did, and wish more people had these options.
The world has changed, and fewer companies offer pensions and health insurance to retirees, and nothing even close to the job security that was once available.
Most employment today is “at will,” which is all to the benefit of the employer, and offers employees very little job/life security.
Even with pensions and healthcare provided, I still believe it’s wise to build other sources of income, if possible. We all have to plan way ahead to make sure we’ve done all we can to prepare for the years when we are 50+.[/quote]In my case, I think everything would have been a lot more predictable had I been able to keep my “grandfathered plan” (Aetna Advantage) who very stringently “medically qualified” me ~12 years ago and priced my premiums accordingly. Since that carrier (and 5 others) left the state at the end of 2013 (in the wake of “obamacare”), it left many thousands of us CA individual policyholders swinging in the wind with little to nothing to choose from except the state exchange. And monthly premiums for a similar-but-worse-in-every-category plan to the HDHP plan I had (current bronze-level plans) now cost over twice as much as I was paying Pre-ACA. Back when I decided to take “deferred retirement,” I didn’t “bank” on the fact that in “retirement,” healthcare premiums would be so high and provider choices would be so thin. I thought I could skate by on my relatively low-cost HDHP plan (which let me have my choice of the top providers in the country) until I was eligible for Medicare and then my new HIR would almost cover my part B and D premiums. I never in a million years thought I would be “lumped in” with the masses (who mostly DIDN’T take care of themselves) and my premiums “age-ranked” with everyone and their brother who mostly couldn’t medically qualify for any healthplan. I resent this because most of these people are where they are healthwise today due to poor choices they made throughout life and I’m now being forced to subsidize their premiums in the form of my now doubled++ premiums and rising :=0
Who would have known 10-15 years ago that it was going to come to this?
