Forced Retirement - Help with Insurance

I was in you exact shoes a couple years ago. IF your adjusted gross income (line 34 IIRC) is over about 70K Obama care is out and you are FUBAR. At least that was our situation. My wife has type 1 diabetes and the total costs were well over 20K a year.

I was self employed, so i dropped my business reducing our AGR to below $35K. Now Obama care kicked in and costs were reasonable.

ANYWAY, consult with a good tax man and you may save a ton.
 
I know I'm not helping the OP...but am I ever glad I live in Canada. I was self-employed and retired a couple of years ago. Last year, a colonoscopy detected a tumour. Confirmed by a CT scan. Surgery 10 days later. Chemo for 4 months. Another CT, MRI and then a PET scan finally showing everything clear. My biggest cash expense? Parking at the hospital (C$18 per day).

The Canadian medical system is not perfect but at least I wasn't facing bankruptcy as well as cancer.

Craig
 
I am a group insurance consultant by day. A company we place clients with (WEX) has their own marketplace that we recommend for an alternative to a company's COBRA coverage and it gives you more options, not just what the employer offers. It is available to anyone, so check it out.

marketplace.wexhealth.com

Marketplace by WEX

Welcome to marketplace by WEX! We are excited to offer you affordable options for individual insurance coverage. Through our marketplace you will have access to a wide array of products, including, but not limited to: Medical Dental Ancillary And much more There are many affordable insurance...
marketplace.wexhealth.com marketplace.wexhealth.com
 
When I started to collect my SS I was 66 and Medicare and went to the local SS office and my wife went with to watch on how to do it when she retired. She was 64 and still working. So she had health insurance through her employer.. As I was interviewed by the SS guy he said to her do you want to collect your spousal benefit from his account? We both were surprised. He explained not many apply for the spouse benefit, so no one knows about it.. I collected around $1700.00 a month and she got a monthly check of around $700.00. She waited until she was 70 to sign up for her SS and when she did they stopped her spouse benefit. They did say that if she died before me then I would be able to collect her SS as she had paid in more then me over the years and my lower check would be stopped. She always made more money then me as she was in IT. I was self employed and my income was cyclic. When she turned 66 she started to Medicare and stopped her work insurance and we bought a supplemental policy that costs around $200.00 a month extra per person (that was less then what she was paying through work. We called our insurance broker who does our home owners and car insurance and they had a agent that reviewed our medicine and found us the best company. I was talking to a young man yesterday about Boeing as he lives out there. He scrapes machines in Maintenance where he now works, He said another friend works at Boeing and that fellow said they would hire him in Maintenance. He said no way as many of his friends get laid off when they get slow.

One more thing is the SS guy told me they would pay a lump sum on my first check up front and that would lower my monthly payment. It was about $100.00 less. I think I got a check for about $5000.00 and the next month I got 1700.00 I have them direct deposit into my checking account. I could go on more about I believe I paid in a lot more over the years then I will ever collect before I die.....It's like gambling,,,, you win some, you loose some and I suspect the House (government) wins on more people then looses.
 
Richard King 2 said:
I could go on more about I believe I paid in a lot more over the years then I will ever collect before I die.....It's like gambling,,,, you win some, you loose some and I suspect the House (government) wins on more people then looses.
Click to expand...
Not to dive into politics. But after a quick google, it's pretty clear that government typically pays out more in SS benefits than it collects in SS taxes, regardless of how much you/spouse earned over your lifetime. Often by a lot.

The plot below is from a (dated) 2013 article, and was prepared for folks who 'recently' retired in 2010. I'm sure updated plots could be easily constructed if you were so interested in the numbers rather than generalities.


1634316807724.png
 
My sister just retired and was really concerned about health care insurance especially since she was covered all these years working for the state. Her husband owns an HVAC business and was always covered by my sisters insurance. I told my sister to divorce her husband and just live together so you each show smaller yearly incomes and then use the healthcare marketplace. When you're older you get punished for being married.
 
I retired 7 years ago at age 70. So far, I have received 75% more in SSA benefits than my lifetime contributions. The life expectancy for someone my age is 92 and based on that, I stand to receive another 350% over what I paid in. My wife is 14 yrs. my junior and has a life expectancy of of 96. In five yrs, she could start drawing spousal benefits on my account and after my passing,survivor's benefits.so she could be drawing for 29 yrs. The total payback could well be over 1,000-% of what I contributed.
 
Best to ask your HR department. It is an obvious and common question and they will let you know options.

Agree they may have benefits for that you are not aware of.

COBRA is not an insurance policy. It is just the company required to allow you to buy what you had for what they pay for it for 18 months. So if you had great insurance it will cost more, if poor coverage it would cost less. Same coverage you had.
 
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