Early Retirees Get $5B Boost from White House

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CBS News/AP

Trying to entice cost-weary employers to keep providing medical coverage to early retirees, the Obama administration is making $5 billion available until the safety net of the new health care law is in place.

Older baby boomers working for large companies - and looking to downshift to less-demanding employment- could be the immediate beneficiaries.

Effective next month, federal subsidies will allow employers to recoup a big chunk of the cost of medical claims for retirees ages 55 to 64 not yet eligible for Medicare, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the official announcement expected Tuesday.

-----

Preventing an immediate rush to the exits by employers is one of the main goals of the new subsidy program, authorized under the health care overhaul law. Among employers with 500 or more workers, only 28 percent offer health benefits to early retirees, down from 46 percent in 1993, according to Mercer, a benefits consulting firm.

Under the program, employers can get reimbursed for up to 80 percent of the cost of medical claims between $15,000 and $90,000 for their early retirees. The government payments can be used to reduce premiums for retirees and their dependents, or by employers to keep their own costs in check. The benefit takes effect June 1.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/04/health/main6458745.shtml?tag=stack

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Bribing older Americans with experience to stop working.

Yeah, that'll help things . . . .

[berni_mccoy]

2. If you actually read the article, you'd realize that this will help employers KEEP older workers.

It's a terrible headline. But you should know by now, you need to actually read the articles to get at the truth.

[zipplewrath]

7. How do you figure that?

It is designed to provide incentives to companies to provide health insurance to people who retire "early", i.e. before they are eligible for medicare. As it is now, folks in that age bracket have to consider the cost of health insurance before they retire and lose their employer based health care. And they didn't want employers dropping their retiree health care plans as we transitioned to the new health insurance structure. This plan isn't about "keeping" older workers, it's about making it easier for them to retire "early".

[DURHAM D]

10. Precisely.

Also, whoever wrote this line had LSD with his Wheaties:

"Older baby boomers working for large companies - and looking to downshift to less-demanding employment- could be the immediate beneficiaries."

Boomers are not looking for easier jobs - they are just hoping to hold on to the ones they have. They are aware that when their employment goes their health care will likely go as well - at least until they turn 65.

What they don't know yet is that when they turn 65 the cost of their Medicare will be off the charts - thanks to the continued privatization. Seniors are now forced to buy private insurance coverage to cover the increasing deductibles, cover the 20% exposure and to buy meds.

Also, companies are off-loading their legacy medical expenses at a rapid rate. My own brother, who is 68, retired from a major company several years. They gave him a retirement deal he could not refuse. The deal included paying his medicare and private supplemental (and his wife's) for the rest of his life. In 2009 and again in 2010 they cut the coverage and increased his expense if he wanted to stay in. He expects that by 2012 his big company won't be paying for anything. They lied to him but he can not do anything about it.

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Legacy Benefits Have Got to Go.

[tyne]

4. Seems like

it would open up jobs for younger workers. It's harmful for total employment when workers can't afford to retire.

[cap]

11. boomers want to work till age 65 just like their daddy's did

and many don't want to burden their children if they haven't made up their retirement.

Seems like the jobs that opened up for the younger workers will be put to good use when those younger workers support their aging early retired parents.

[icee]

9. Exactly.

[berni_mccoy]

3. Terrible headline. Implies the opposite of what is being done.

[tyne]

5. How so?

[berni_mccoy]

6. It says "Retirees" get a $5B boost. Actually, it incentivizes employers to keep older workers.

If they can keep working, they aren't retirees, now are they.

[tyne]

8. How does it incentive

employers to keep older workers?