The health insurance blues
Medicare doesn't cover spouses, or costly drugs, so some put off retiring
As people factor healthcare coverage into their retirement plans, for many it means that at least one is putting off retiring until both husband and wife reach 65. John Holmes will be 65 in September and has worked as a lawyer for 38 years. He feels he cannot call it quits because his wife, who had breast cancer, could be uninsurable without his group policy. "After 38 years of doing this stuff, I really need to get some fresh air, stick my head up, and look around," said Holmes. "But if I set out to do something other than what I'm doing, we would no longer be eligible under the group policy."
The prescription drug nightmare adds to the pressure to keep working. Lary and Marilyn Belman have been married for 36 years, and, at 63, he has started thinking about retirement. But Marilyn, 64, has had extensive health problems--seizure disorder, osteoporosis, scleroderma, a balance problem, and deafness in one ear. She worked as a schoolteacher and will get disability insurance until she turns 65. But they have decided the only way they can afford her medications--which could cost up to $8,000 a year as they're not covered under Medicare--is for Lary to keep his job as a psychotherapist at a family service agency in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Robert Hayes hears these concerns all the time. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center (www.medicarerights .org), an independent source of Medicare information, says seniors increasingly are postponing retirement because of health coverage worries. "A lot of people continue to work for that very reason, past 65 and into their 70s," he says. "This is the generation being hardest hit, and it's hitting women especially hard."
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