Retirement thoughts Past Present Future

[buckeyefarmer]

To help answer my own question. Companies offer health insurance as part of your salary package. It’s a benefit they offer to attract workers. The company pays part of the cost, which is why it looks cheaper to have insurance thru employment. It was only recently that you were taxed on the cost benefit of what the company paid. Most people, they just see their share of the cost and think, insurance is so much cheaper thru employment. They are missing the hidden cost.
Then there is a huge cost difference based on what’s covered, deductibles chosen, in network, out of network, out of pocket maximums, % you pay after meeting deductible, etc. so many variables.
costs are lowered by insurance companies negotiating rates within their network of doctors.

 

[Straightgrain3016]

It might suprise some people, that their employer(s) take out & maintain life insurance policies on their employee(s).

 

[buckeyefarmer]

It might suprise some people, that their employer(s) take out & maintain life insurance policies on their employee(s).

Since most usually “give you” 1x your salary, yes they do. They take out disability insurance for sure.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

One company I worked for made it very clear your total benefit cost, and it’s important for you to know. When you look at going to another company, it’s not just salary, but cost of time off, sick leave, health&life insurance, their 401k contributions, etc.
it’s also easier for companies to cut your pay thru reducing benefits than to cut the salary part.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Nah. Several years earlier. Somebody saw an opportunity to make some money.

No government involvement before the WWII price controls.

How Kaiser Permanente Evolved

Sidney R. Garfield, MD, and Henry J. Kaiser came together to pioneer an innovative health care model.

about.kaiserpermanente.org

The Real Reason the U.S. Has Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance (Published 2017)

More an accident of history than anything else, a product of World War II and tax policy, it is the system we seem to be stuck with.

www.nytimes.com

​

The Real Reason the U.S. Has Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance​

By Aaron E. Carroll

• Sept. 5, 2017

The basic structure of the American health care system, in which most people have private insurance through their jobs, might seem historically inevitable, consistent with the capitalistic, individualist ethos of the nation.
In truth, it was hardly preordained. In fact, the system is largely a result of one event, World War II, and the wage freezes and tax policy that emerged because of it. Unfortunately, what made sense then may not make as much right now.
Well into the 20th century, there just wasn’t much need for health insurance. There wasn’t much health care to buy. But as doctors and hospitals learned how to do more, there was real money to be made. In 1929, a bunch of hospitals in Texas joined up and formed an insurance plan called Blue Cross to help people buy their services. Doctors didn’t like the idea of hospitals being in charge, so some in California created their own plan in 1939, which they called Blue Shield. As the plans spread, many would purchase Blue Cross for hospital services, and Blue Shield for physician services, until they merged to form Blue Cross and Blue Shield in 1982.
Most insurance in the first half of the 20th century was bought privately, but few people wanted it. Things changed during World War II.

In 1942, with so many eligible workers diverted to military service, the nation was facing a severe labor shortage. Economists feared that businesses would keep raising salaries to compete for workers, and that inflation would spiral out of control as the country came out of the Depression. To prevent this, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9250, establishing the Office of Economic Stabilization.

This froze wages. Businesses were not allowed to raise pay to attract workers.

Businesses were smart, though, and instead they began to use benefits to compete. Specifically, to offer more, and more generous, health care insurance.

Then, in 1943, the Internal Revenue Service decided that employer-based health insurance should be exempt from taxation. This made it cheaper to get health insurance through a job than by other means.

After World War II, Europe was devastated. As countries began to regroup and decide how they might provide health care to their citizens, often government was the only entity capable of doing so, with businesses and economies in ruin. The United States was in a completely different situation. Its economy was booming, and industry was more than happy to provide health care.

 

[ovrszd]

Your financial success is above average so congratulations. In our case working from 60 to 72 gives us the opportunity added to our retirement accounts and general savings.

Thank you for the compliment Gale. I would rather say my living standards are below average. I just finished doing my taxes. Line 15 on our 1040 is $15,277.13. Taxable income.

We are debt free living on 150 acres in a 4 year old house and shop. Our newest vehicle is 12 years old. In the last 20 years we've bought one new item, the Kubota tractor. Gift to myself upon retirement.

If we are above average at anything, and I don't think we are, it's living within our means. It's worth it to us to add years to our retirement life.

 

[ovrszd]

Life is a roll of the dice.
When young and foolish I had planned to work in my field until 70 or so.
I was a civilian government employee supporting the field Army in mapping out of a Research lab.
For decades the high point had been Reforger exercises. Two weeks in Germany with two months of prep.
About Desert Storm our lab was running full speed support. Our group would often work 60 and 80 hour weeks and only get paid for 40. Then we won and the pressure was off, until Somalia, which required months of extra commitment, then Bosnia (where me and our team got to go to Serbia for months). Lot's of exciting travel with a group of friends. Then a couple of years after when Bosnia wound down the SHTF and we got REAL serious.
I had enjoyed it up until then.
From 2001 until I retired in 2011 I and most of our group probably averaged less than 2 weeks per month at home base. Our Temporary Duty (TDY) had us flitting all over the globe training "mappers", usually 3 weeks of travel, but not back to back. Except one time I went to Germany, Hawaii, Korea, Hawaii then finally home, training for about 3 months.
It took it's toll.
Then the dice got rolled again,
My wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed, suffered 2 strokes in 2009 and decided to retire. She recovered, is GREAT, but it was a wake up call.
About the same time 4 coworkers, about my age at the time, passed away over the course of a few months. One from getting hit by a car while biking to work, one from leukemia, one from heart failure, one from a car accident while on TDY.
That was a decider.
Time to pack it in, regardless if I worked a few more years I could of maximized my retirement, but would I live to enjoy it?
Money be darned, sometimes it just not worth it.
Everybody has their own situation.

I felt all of this post. Except I was on the military side of it. My unit started Deploying during Desert Storm. Then continued to Deploy elements what seemed like constantly. When I retired in 2011 my Company had logged over 250,000 mandays downrange. As the First Sergeant I wore every day of it mentally. My final Deployment had my Company scattered all over Iraq and Afghanistan. I was Deployed 508 days. Traveled constantly. Lived out of a large rucksack. I was 55 years old. I came home mentally exhausted. At 60 years old the Army said it was time for me to retire. I did not argue. I've enjoyed every day. I thank God multiple times every day for the life I've had. Even the darkest days.

Here's a pic taken while I was waiting for a Chinook to shuttle me to Bagram Afghanistan.

 

[two_bit_score]

It might suprise some people, that their employer(s) take out & maintain life insurance policies on their employee(s).

Yes, these policies are known as Dead Peasant policies.

Do Corporations Routinely Buy 'Dead Peasant' Insurance?

Rumor: Large corporations routinely take out 'dead peasant' insurance policies on low-level employees to be paid out as executive bonuses.

www.snopes.com

In April 2002, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled "Companies Profit on Workers' Deaths Through 'Dead Peasants' Insurance," describing what was then a little-known practice wherein large companies purchased corporate-owned life insurance (or COLI) policies on low-level employees in order to garner tax breaks and profit from their deaths (even if those employees had long since ceased working for the companies that took out the policies). That article addressed the more colorful name by which the practice had become more widely known in subsequent years, "dead peasant insurance,"

 

[ovrszd]

One company I worked for made it very clear your total benefit cost, and it’s important for you to know. When you look at going to another company, it’s not just salary, but cost of time off, sick leave, health&life insurance, their 401k contributions, etc.
it’s also easier for companies to cut your pay thru reducing benefits than to cut the salary part.

Very often overlooked.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I felt all of this post. Except I was on the military side of it. My unit started Deploying during Desert Storm. Then continued to Deploy elements what seemed like constantly. When I retired in 2011 my Company had logged over 250,000 mandays downrange. As the First Sergeant I wore every day of it mentally. My final Deployment had my Company scattered all over Iraq and Afghanistan. I was Deployed 508 days. Traveled constantly. Lived out of a large rucksack. I was 55 years old. I came home mentally exhausted. At 60 years old the Army said it was time for me to retire. I did not argue. I've enjoyed every day. I thank God multiple times every day for the life I've had. Even the darkest days.

Here's a pic taken while I was waiting for a Chinook to shuttle me to Bagram Afghanistan.


View attachment 785586

Thanks for serving.