Retirees and Health Care Reform

Current retired employees who have an agreement through their place of employment for continued insurance coverage are finding themselves in jeopardy. The passage of the health care reform has now placed many of these retirees in danger of losing their employer-provided health coverage.

There are currently upwards of fifteen million retired individuals who were promised employer-funded low-cost health insurance and are now wondering how much longer this will continue. This is something that each of the retirees have paid into during their working years with the peace of mind knowing they and their family members will continue with the same affordable health insurance coverage they have come to expect.

The difficulty is many of these retired individuals are Medicare eligible and receive employer-based insurance to supplement their insurance costs. In some ways, this is equal to the Medicare Advantage supplemental insurance coverage that many senior citizens have purchased and enjoyed over the years.

We already are aware that the Medicare Advantage supplemental health insurance coverage is being discontinued compliments of the health reform act. There has been no steadfast decision on the employer-based insurance to supplement the current retirees.

Another issue that has not been discussed often is the prescription medication benefits many of these retirees are afforded along with the employer-based insurance. These were things agreed to many years ago and now the government is trying to step in and in one clean sweep void all these issues, including individual health insurance. What will the fifteen million current retirees do when this becomes a reality?

These are individuals who are now living on Social Security and or an employer pension plan that they paid into for thirty or more years, only to have it disappear at the whim of a government that is out of control. How will they and their family members cope when their insurance dries up and fades away?

These are not strangers new to the world of employment. These are individuals who have spent most of their adult life working and providing for a family to have their promised insurance rescinded at the point of a pen. They may be your grandfather, grandmother, mother, father, aunts, and uncles.

Now they are being coerced into enrolling in the Medicare health care system which in and of itself is also going broke. When the Medicare health system finally falls, will the government step in and tout their government-run single payer insurance?