- Title Pages
- Dedication
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- I Foundations and Fault Lines
- 1 Retirement USA
- 2 Early Motivations behind the Pension Movement
- II Social Security: The Dream and Reality
- 3 Development and Passage of the Social Security Act
- 4 Early Concerns Prove Nagging and Persistent
- 5 Moving to Pay-as-You-Go Financing
- 6 A Deal Too Good to Last
- 7 Operations under Pay-As-You-Go Financing
- 8 Crisis and Reactions
- 9 Sorting Out the Trust Fund Semantics and Realities
- 10 Policy Stalemate at the Demographic Divide
- 11 Understanding Social Security in Modern Times
- III Employer-Based Pension Provision
- 12 Employer Pensions Taking Root
- 13 Growing Pains for Private Retirement Plans
- 14 ERISA
- 15 The 1980s
- 16 Good Intentions Gone Awry
- 17 Some Good News … or Not
- 18 The Unfolding of a Predictable Defined Benefit Surprise
- 19 And Then, A Predictable Defined Contribution Surprise
- 20 Public Pensions
- IV Delivering Benefits and Providing Retirement Security
- 21 Retirement Income Security and Workers’ Residuals
- 22 End Game
- 23 We’ve Killed the Goose, Let’s Gild the Eggs
- 24 Tax Benefits and Benefit Taxes
- 25 Retiree Health Benefits
- V Truth and Consequences
- 26 The Fellow behind the Tree
- 27 Securing the Social Security Foundation
- 28 Securing Tax-Favored Benefits and Living Standards
- 29 Remembering the Future
- Glossary
- Index
Retiree Health Benefits
Retiree Health Benefits
Misfortune or Malpractice?
- Chapter:
- (p.294) 25 Retiree Health Benefits
- Source:
- The Predictable Surprise
- Author(s):
Sylvester J. Schieber
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This chapter examines the regulatory issues surrounding retiree health benefits. Employers have played a role in retiree health care, although that role has dwindled over the last quarter century. The financing of retiree health consumption is an extremely important consideration in the retirement income security picture. Before 1935, health insurance plans were rare in the United States. Health insurance spread rapidly, and before long, many employers were financing some or all the cost of health insurance for workers and their dependents. The same factors that encouraged employers to become a primary provider of retirement income security enticed them to also provide health benefits. The chapter first looks at the rise of Medicare and the regulatory conflicts arising from employers’ health insurance for retirees. It then considers the introduction of pay-as-you-go financing on retiree health benefits and how economic irrationality prompted employers to retrench on those benefits. It also explains how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 will change the operating environment for employer-sponsored health plans for retired workers.
Keywords: retiree health benefits, retiree health care, retirement income security, health insurance, Medicare, retirees, pay-as-you-go financing, employers, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, employer-sponsored health plans
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- I Foundations and Fault Lines
- 1 Retirement USA
- 2 Early Motivations behind the Pension Movement
- II Social Security: The Dream and Reality
- 3 Development and Passage of the Social Security Act
- 4 Early Concerns Prove Nagging and Persistent
- 5 Moving to Pay-as-You-Go Financing
- 6 A Deal Too Good to Last
- 7 Operations under Pay-As-You-Go Financing
- 8 Crisis and Reactions
- 9 Sorting Out the Trust Fund Semantics and Realities
- 10 Policy Stalemate at the Demographic Divide
- 11 Understanding Social Security in Modern Times
- III Employer-Based Pension Provision
- 12 Employer Pensions Taking Root
- 13 Growing Pains for Private Retirement Plans
- 14 ERISA
- 15 The 1980s
- 16 Good Intentions Gone Awry
- 17 Some Good News … or Not
- 18 The Unfolding of a Predictable Defined Benefit Surprise
- 19 And Then, A Predictable Defined Contribution Surprise
- 20 Public Pensions
- IV Delivering Benefits and Providing Retirement Security
- 21 Retirement Income Security and Workers’ Residuals
- 22 End Game
- 23 We’ve Killed the Goose, Let’s Gild the Eggs
- 24 Tax Benefits and Benefit Taxes
- 25 Retiree Health Benefits
- V Truth and Consequences
- 26 The Fellow behind the Tree
- 27 Securing the Social Security Foundation
- 28 Securing Tax-Favored Benefits and Living Standards
- 29 Remembering the Future
- Glossary
- Index
