Health Care in retirement before age 65....Exchanges or Private.
 

My financial planner mentioned looking into health care exchanges instead of locking in subsidized coverage through my existing employer. The coverage available to my wife and I is around 900 per month for Anthem PPO. What is your experience? Deal or No Deal?

Your income until Medicare will determine if exchanges can beat your employer deal. The exchange has you project your income for the upcoming year. The key here is definition of income. If you have a pile of after tax cash that you can live off of you can look very poor on paper but have millions in before tax accounts. I think your adviser was trying to convey this to you. Try him/her again for a more detailed explanation.

I planned for this with early retirement and went from 1800/month employer plan to 200/month from age 62 to 65. In my case the employer plan was so bad if I missed my projection the penalty I would need to pay to the exchange would be a wash.

Hey Rusty, Assuming the 200 month is an exchange medical. Any opinion on the quality of coverage or availability of doctors on these plans?

I am very happy with AARP United. I paid $900/month the first couple of years (age 62-65) now my income is less and I pay $280. Very happy. Other than prescriptions, I've only paid 2 doctor bills in the past 4-5 years totaling less than $100. Prescription coverage is very good, but I'm on some pricey meds so I pay a little. So very happy.

In my case the coverage from the ACA exchange was better than my employers plan. Don't quote me but I believe you must get the insurance from your state of residence. Google ACA and your state and you should be able to find the plans offered and a financial calculator. You can't make that big of a mistake:

1 if you compare your employer plan to the exchange plan you pick
2 You still have a clean slate to pick at age 65

Given you haven't moved to TV yet my assumption is you are not a Florida resident. You must get insurance from your state of residence. Once you become a FL resident you will be able to switch plans. Your biggest decision right now will be are you willing to give up the employer insurance. There is usually a clause if you leave you cannot go back. This becomes important if your employer plan is providing you a supplemental for life once you hit 65.

Here is the link to how millionaires can get zero deductible policies and pay less than $100 a month using this tactic prior to qualifying for Medicare. It’s due to the fact that income is the only factor determining what your subsidy will be. If you sold your home and bought a less expensive one in retirement and used the cash to live on until Medicare, it’s very doable.

Access Denied

The only kicker here is that if your employer offers you a plan, you don't qualify for ACA. That question is asked during the initial sign up. If you have an available retirement health plan available from your employer, you are automatically disqualified from ACA.

Incorrect info
 

You are not automatically denied if you are offered a plan from employer. I am retired and my employer plan requires I pay the premiums in retirement with no employer subsidies. If the plan meets high cost to income ratio, you qualify for the reduced premiums of the exchange. I have Blue Cross and employee premiums were 800 so I qualified and premiums are about 450 with credits.

The exchangers would "probably" never find out if you were offered a company plan. In my case I received a lump sum for health care premiums that expired when I reached 65. The only issue with it was that I was not allowed to receive a subsidy in order to use the credits.

Most people I know keep their employer plans and often keep them into their Medicare supplement plans. We did not have an employer plan available to us, so we use the ACA Healthcare exchange where you cannot be denied coverage. We are full-time Florida residents so we use Healthcare.gov site. It's the only place you can get an ACA plan and be considered for subsidies. If you are another state's resident, it may be different and the plans may not be accepted around here. We selected one of the least expensive Florida Blue Select Bronze plans. The premium per person on this plan for ages in the The low sixties is approx $900 per month per person. There is very little choice besides Florida Blue - there is Ambetter and there might be another plan like Kaiser strict HMO.
I have found that the Florida Blue Select plan is not accepted around here. I have not found one place that accepts it. It apparently pays providers less than other Florida Blue plans. But we are pretty healthy and self pay for our office visits since our deductible is extremely high like $6K. It helps a little with Rx and bloodwork.
Changes occur regularly like income limits, subsidies, etc so be careful.
Good luck!

What was the $200 a month plan? Who was it with? What was the deductible, etc.?

I have Florida Blue Anthem $350 for both of us. We use The Villages health system no problems. We show low income to qualify. As others said we live off of cash saved. My husband retired at 53 and he is currently 62 aand I’m 57.

We kept our company sponsored private plan, the high deductible version, to maximize the HSA savings option, which was never offered prior to this year. We will keep it as long as CoachK is employed, and the HSA contributions are available. Lots of ignorant comments when it was offered by those who couldn't do the financial analysis of spending versus savings. They were intimidated by the concept of high deductible.

Can't get HSA contributions in the government plans.

good luck in your decision.

Did the same thing. Problem is that I had a fund which reported higher than anticipated capital gains(income) and I went from $200 a month to $800 a month. Next year was on Medicare and best insurance I have ever had.

I am 63- married On ACA now. As long as our yearly income stays below around 30,000 per year I get 100% govt subsidies to pay my monthly medical fee! We pay 0 dollars per month. We selected Florida blue select plan. 40 dollar doctor deductible and 85 dollar specialist deductible. That’s it. So the lower you can keep you income- the less you pay with ACA or Obamacare or whatever you want to call it. It works really welll. This is the second year we have been on it. Totally happy. But the key is that yearly income ! If you don’t have cash then this may not work for you.