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Health Insurance Choices If You Retire Before 65

By Marilyn Katz

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 21Sep2011 Word count: 573 Viewed: 311 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Do you dream of retiring early. Many older workers would like to retire before the normal retirement age. Some want to quit working. Others want to devote time to starting a new business or career. These people believe they have worked hard, and they have prepared well. There may only be one real barrier that keeps them from their dreams or goals.

One of the bigget barriers to retiring before age 65 is a concern over early retirement health insurance.The majority of American qorkers can qualify for Medicare at age 65. Medicare is the US federal medical plan for those who are over 65 or disabled. However, when people want to leave their jobs before the age of 65, how can they be sure they can keep and afford a good major medical plan?

Will a private health plan work out for you? It is not impossible to find health insurance between 50 and 64. However, it can be a lot tougher to find affordable rates at an older age. To make matters worse, some health conditions may even cause the private company to decline coverage. Private plans are common, but they do not accept every applicant. Furthermore, rates go up by age. A middle age person may have a tough time getting covered. If they can get covered, they may expect to pay higher rates!

Some companies will actually extend group benefits for retired or terminated employees. You may be able to keep your group major medical insurance after you retire, and if you can, this may be a good option. Sometimes you can extend this coverage for years, but sometimes you can only extend it for several months. For example, if you are terminated, you may be able to keep your group plan through a COBRA extension. You have to decide if this retirement benefit will be open to you, and if so, it will be good enough for your needs!

A lot of workers cannot extend their health benefits though. Some workers never even had these benefits in the first place! If you have no group benefits, and you cannot get a private plan, do you still have any other options?

Actually, each state in the USA has some sort of high risk pool for people who were declined for private insurance. Not everybody qualifies though, and the premiums can be quite pricy in some areas. This may help you if you have the money, and just need health insurance. If your income will be reduced by early retirement, this may not be the right option for you.

You can also find low income health plan alternatives. Many counties have a hospital system that accepts a sliding scale of fees. Other people turn to state and federal low income health plan alternatives. There are also nonprofit organizations (like PPARX.org) and private foundations that help people with various health needs.

If you are planning to retire early, it can be tough to figure out how you can keep good health coverage. However, there are a lot of alternative ways to get medical coverage and services besides group medical benefits from work. Medical insurance may not prevent you from retiring early, but you may need to work a little bit to find a good alternative!

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