Companies No Longer Want to Pick Up Health-Care Tabs

If you’re planning on retiring and receiving health-care benefits from your employer, then best of luck to you.  Benefits are going through a drastic change and due to rising costs employers are eliminating health-care benefits for former employees.

With the Affordable Care Act altering things, even more employers are re-strategizing to contain their costs.  To add to this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is saying that Medical-care costs have risen on average 5.7% per year for the past 20 years, more than double to the current inflation rate!

So, what are companies doing instead of providing benefits?  Well, they’re sending their employees off with a fixed amount of dough to use toward any health expenses they may face in the future.  What that fixed amount adds up to is debatable.

Jacqueline Berry, spokeswoman for Scotch tape, one of the companies who has discontinued offering retirees Medicare, states that retirees can find individual Medicare supplement plans on their own that are cheaper than what Scotch originally had to offer.

Basically, companies don’t want to pick up the health-care tab, or as Leon LaBrecque, the CEO of LJPR – a financial advisory firm in Troy, Mich., says, “if you want to know who’ll be paying for retiree health care, look in the mirror.”

Want to read more?  Head on over to Market Watch. Contact Kenneth G Marks Law Firm to schedule an appointment today.

Kenneth G. Marks is an aggressive Social Security Disability attorney who will fight for you! www.KmarksLaw.com