Thank you Rey and tsmccull for these posts. I just turned 67 but still working and covered by my employment group plan. I anticipate continuing to work for at least another three years in part because my wife who is 62 does not work and won't be eligible for medicare until then so I need to keep her coverage under the employment plan for now. And I really just don't want to to retire now anyway, I like what I do and don't have hobbies etc to fill my time if I did (but that's a whole other topic).

Every time i try to take a look at the Medicare situation I get overwhelmed, give up and figure I will have an insurance person work through it with me when the time comes, but both of your explanations were very clear and detailed and I now feel I have a much better understanding for when I do have to make those decisions.

Thank you for the info. I’m about 2 years from Medicare, and still working full time. Haven’t decided if I will also retire then or not, depends on my job duties. If they stay about the same, might keep working, but boy I am tired of the rat race.

quote:

Originally posted by m1009:
Thank you for the info. I’m about 2 years from Medicare, and still working full time. Haven’t decided if I will also retire then or not, depends on my job duties. If they stay about the same, might keep working, but boy I am tired of the rat race.

If you're two years away from 65 and tired of the rat race, here's a strategy you might want to consider. You can get the best health insurance plans for little to nothing. You just need to be able to limit your income to between 138% and 150% of the Federal Poverty Level for the number of people in your household. For example, for 2023 and 2 people, your income has to be between $25,268 and $27,465 and you will get the best healthcare insurance for free. That's like zero copays for doctor visits and prescriptions with just $500 deductible for the whole year. Below the limit and you'll be forced into Medicaid. As you go above 150% of the FPL, your expected premium contribution goes up. For the same 2 people at 300% FPL ($54,930), your premium contribution goes up to 6% of what your income is. Above 400% FPL, your premiums is limited to 8.5% of your annual income.

How can you live on just $25,268 for a whole year just to qualify for free healthcare? You don't. This means you have cash outside or a Roth IRA that you can tap without triggering income that you have to report on your taxes. To apply, go to healthcare.gov. If your state has it's own program, it will have a link in healthcare.gov. To maximize your cash flow, you would quit early in the year before you earn more than the poverty level / subsidy you're shooting for including any income you are projected to earn for the rest of the year.

When you apply, you would simply submit a letter that you upload that states what you expect to earn for the year (which would be just a $1 below the 150% FPL level which qualifies you for zero premiums instead of submitting your tax returns. Just understand that if you exceed your FPL target even by just one dollar, you revert to the next lower subsidy level and may have to pay back part of your healthcare subsidy as part of your tax return.

Here's a link that gives the FPL numbers Link

I used to use the California table as it's a lot easier to understand but this works just as well. You just need to google each year you'll be on Obamacare to know what the new income targets are.

quote:

Originally posted by kho:
Thank you Rey and tsmccull for these posts. I just turned 67 but still working and covered by my employment group plan. I anticipate continuing to work for at least another three years in part because my wife who is 62 does not work and won't be eligible for medicare until then so I need to keep her coverage under the employment plan for now. And I really just don't want to to retire now anyway, I like what I do and don't have hobbies etc to fill my time if I did (but that's a whole other topic).

Every time i try to take a look at the Medicare situation I get overwhelmed, give up and figure I will have an insurance person work through it with me when the time comes, but both of your explanations were very clear and detailed and I now feel I have a much better understanding for when I do have to make those decisions.

You can sign up for Medicare Part A since it does not cost you anything. When you retire, you'll be given a piece of paper from your employer saying you've had coverage and you'll need this to do a special event application for Medicare Part B and D.

If you need an agent's help to sign up, you should. But, hopefully, this thread has given you enough information to let you know what you want and you can tell if the agent you happen to get is not looking out for your best welfare.

Rey, thanks, but that option on income isn’t possible at the moment. Hubby still working and has a longer time before retirement than me. We have been concentrating on making sure we are getting things fixed now while we both are working, to recover the cost more easily. Maybe in a couple years, we will look at options then to see if this would work.