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Book The Role of Retiree Health Insurance in the Early Retirement of Public Sector Employees

Download or read book The Role of Retiree Health Insurance in the Early Retirement of Public Sector Employees written by John B. Shoven and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most private sector workers with employer-provided health insurance have a strong incentive to continue working until Medicare eligibility in order to maintain group health coverage. However, most government employees have access to retiree health coverage, which allows them access to group health coverage even if they retire before Medicare eligibility. We study the impact of retiree health coverage on the probability of stopping work among public sector workers between the ages of 55 and 64. We find that, for state and local government employees, retiree health coverage raises the probability of stopping work by 5.1 percentage points (around 28 percent) between ages 60 and 64. However, we find no evidence that retiree health coverage influences state and local employees' decisions to stop work at ages 55-59, or that such coverage has an effect on the probability of stopping work for federal and military employees.

Book Retiree Health Plans in the Public Sector

Download or read book Retiree Health Plans in the Public Sector written by Robert L. Clark and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While retiree health plans are a dying benefit in the private sector, all US states and many local governments extend health insurance coverage to their retired employees. This book is the first to thoroughly examine public sector health insurance plans. Retiree Health Plans in the Public Sector provides a detailed description of the current plans offered and compares how they vary across states. Health insurance is an important component of compensation in the public sector as it helps governments attract and retain quality workers and encourages timely retirement for career employees. Rapidly rising medical costs, an aging labor force, and an increasing number of retirees have dramatically increased the cost of providing this benefit. A central theme of this analysis is a presentation of the actuarial accrued liabilities, the unfunded liabilities and the annual required contribution of the employers based on the actuarial statements for retiree health plans. The authors alsoinvestigate why some states face major funding problems while the costs of other states? plans are much more manageable. Extensively researched and well-suited for classroom and professional use alike, academics in the fields of economics and public policy will find this an unmatched resource. So too will policymakers, economists, legislators, public sector union leaders and those invested in public sector healthcare.

Book The Funding Status of Retiree Health Plans in the Public Sector

Download or read book The Funding Status of Retiree Health Plans in the Public Sector written by Robert Clark and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While no longer common in the private sector, most public sector employers offer retiree health insurance (RHI) as a retirement benefit to their employees. While these plans are thought to be an important tool for employers to attract, retain, motivate, and ultimately retire workers, they represent a large and growing cost. This paper reviews what is currently known about RHI in the public sector, while highlighting many important unanswered research questions. The analysis is informed by detailed data from states on their liabilities associated with RHI, which were produced in accordance with the 2004 Government Accounting Standards Board Rule 45 (GASB 45). We consider the extent of the unfunded liabilities states face and explore what factors may explain the variation in liabilities across states. The importance and sustainability of RHI plans in the public sector ultimately depends on how workers view and value this post-retirement benefit, yet little is known about how RHI directly impacts the public sector labor market. We conclude with a discussion of the future of RHI plans in the public sector -- National Bureau of Economic Research web site.

Book Essays on the Economics of Public Sector Retirement Programs

Download or read book Essays on the Economics of Public Sector Retirement Programs written by Gregory Quick Leiserson and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis investigates the influence of retiree health and pension policies on the retirement decisions of public sector employees. Chapter one documents the central role of eligibility for subsidized retiree health insurance. Using administrative records obtained from the Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System, the analysis finds that the well-documented spike in the separation rate at the normal retirement age almost completely disappears in the population of workers not yet eligible for subsidized retiree health insurance. A second set of results exploits quasi-experimental variation in plan design to show that increasing the service requirement for subsidized retiree health insurance stretches the distribution of separations: early separations occur earlier and late separations occur later. Chapter two presents a structural analysis of the retirement decision for the same employees. Existing models of the retirement decision treat eligibility as a fixed characteristic of the worker rather than one that evolves over the career. This chapter estimates a model of life-cycle labor supply and uses it to simulate labor supply behavior under different health and pension policies. Changes in the eligibility requirements for subsidized retiree health insurance induce dramatic changes in retirement timing that would be missed in models that do not account for an employer's eligibility criteria. Chapter three turns to the defined benefit pension plans common in the public sector. These plans create complicated incentives in favor of continued work at some ages and in favor of retirement at others. The strength of these incentives depends on many factors, such as the age of initial employment and the number of years on the job. Because employees differ along these dimensions, the value of the pension benefits earned over the course of a career varies substantially-even among employees with the same total earnings. This chapter investigates the incentive effects and distributional consequences of four stylized plan designs. It derives simple formulas for the accrual rate of pension wealth and the distribution of benefits under each of the plans and uses these formulas to gain insight into the incentives and risks they create.

Book State and Local Government Retirement Systems  1965

Download or read book State and Local Government Retirement Systems 1965 written by Joseph Krislov and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Providing Health Care Benefits in Retirement

Download or read book Providing Health Care Benefits in Retirement written by Judith F. Mazo and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, from the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School, highlights many of the special health insurance problems facing the elderly and some of the solutions that any reform process must consider.

Book Federal Employees  and Retirees  Health Benefits

Download or read book Federal Employees and Retirees Health Benefits written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. Subcommittee on Retirement, Insurance, and Health Benefits and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book How Does Retiree Health Insurance Influence Public Sector Employee Saving

Download or read book How Does Retiree Health Insurance Influence Public Sector Employee Saving written by Robert Louis Clark and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic theory predicts that employer-provided retiree health insurance benefits crowd-out household wealth accumulation. Nevertheless, there is little research on the impacts of retiree health insurance on wealth accruals, so this paper utilizes a unique data file on three baseline cohorts from the Health and Retirement Study to explore how employer-provided retiree health insurance may influence net household wealth among public sector employees, where retiree healthcare benefits are still quite prevalent. We find that most full-time public sector employees who anticipate receiving employer-provided health insurance coverage in retirement save less than their private sector uncovered counterparts.

Book Aging and the Macroeconomy

Download or read book Aging and the Macroeconomy written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-01-10 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is in the midst of a major demographic shift. In the coming decades, people aged 65 and over will make up an increasingly large percentage of the population: The ratio of people aged 65+ to people aged 20-64 will rise by 80%. This shift is happening for two reasons: people are living longer, and many couples are choosing to have fewer children and to have those children somewhat later in life. The resulting demographic shift will present the nation with economic challenges, both to absorb the costs and to leverage the benefits of an aging population. Aging and the Macroeconomy: Long-Term Implications of an Older Population presents the fundamental factors driving the aging of the U.S. population, as well as its societal implications and likely long-term macroeconomic effects in a global context. The report finds that, while population aging does not pose an insurmountable challenge to the nation, it is imperative that sensible policies are implemented soon to allow companies and households to respond. It offers four practical approaches for preparing resources to support the future consumption of households and for adapting to the new economic landscape.

Book Employer Provided Health Insurance and Retirement Behavior

Download or read book Employer Provided Health Insurance and Retirement Behavior written by Alan L. Gustman and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the effects on retirement of employer provided health benefits to workers and retirees. Retiree health benefits delay retirement until age of eligibility, and then accelerate it. With a base case of no retiree health coverage, granting retiree health coverage to all those with employer coverage while working accelerates retirement age by less than one month. Valuing benefits at costs of private health insurance to unaffiliated individuals, rather than at group rates, increases the effect. Ignoring retiree health benefits in retirement models creates only a small bias. Changing health insurance policies has a small effect on retirement.

Book Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment

Download or read book Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment written by Jeffrey R. Brown and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-12-15 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment analyzes the changing economic and demographic environment in which social insurance programs that benefit elderly households will operate. It also explores how these ongoing trends will affect future beneficiaries, under both the current social security program and potential reform options. In this volume, an esteemed group of economists probes the challenge posed to Social Security by an aging population. The researchers examine trends in private sector retirement saving and health care costs, as well as the uncertain nature of future demographic, economic, and social trends—including marriage and divorce rates and female participation in the labor force. Recognizing the ambiguity of the environment in which the Social Security system must operate and evolve, this landmark book explores factors that policymakers must consider in designing policies that are resilient enough to survive in an economically and demographically uncertain society.

Book Retirement Choices by State and Local Public Sector Employees

Download or read book Retirement Choices by State and Local Public Sector Employees written by Leslie E. Papke and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I analyze the effects of state public pension parameters on the retirement of public employees. Using a panel data set of public sector workers from 12 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, I model the probability of retirement as a function of pension wealth at early and normal retirement eligibility and Social Security coverage in the public sector job. I find that becoming eligible for early retirement, or receiving an early-out offer, significantly increases the probability of retiring. I do not find any effect of retirement wealth levels; instead the findings are consistent with the literature on default options in defined contribution plans. These findings suggest that state legislative action to affect retirement decisions and reduce future pension costs may be most effective operating through plan eligibility rules and early-out incentives.

Book Implications of Health Reform for Retiree Health Benefits

Download or read book Implications of Health Reform for Retiree Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines how current health reform legislation being debated in Congress will impact the future of retiree health benefits. The paper also provides background on the impact of private-sector accounting rule changes on the availability of retiree health benefits since the mid-1990s; the more recent impact of public-sector accounting rule changes on retiree health benefits in the public sector; the impact on employment-based retiree health benefits of adding a drug benefit to Medicare; and the potential impact of current health reform legislation on employment-based health benefits for early retirees and Medicare beneficiaries. In general, the proposals' provisions will have a mixed impact on retiree health benefits: In the short term, the reinsurance provisions would help shore up early retiree coverage and Medicare Part D coverage would become more valuable to retirees. In the longer term, insurance reform combined with new subsidies for individuals enrolling for coverage through insurance exchanges, the maintenance-of-effort provision affecting early retiree benefits, increases to the cost of providing drug benefits to retirees, and enhanced Medicare Part D coverage, would all create significant incentives for employers to drop coverage for early retirees and drug coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees. With some exceptions, the House-passed legislation would prohibit employers from changing the benefits offered to retirees and their beneficiaries once a person has retired. This provision could have a number of different effects: More employers may move toward capping their contributions; employers that want to maintain retiree health benefits may react by cutting the health benefits of active workers; employers may eliminate retiree health benefits altogether to avoid being locked into providing a permanent benefit; or they may drop benefits if they think there is no need to provide them.

Book Employer Sponsored Health Insurance for Early Retirees

Download or read book Employer Sponsored Health Insurance for Early Retirees written by Erin Strumpf and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proportion of large employers offering retiree health insurance in the U.S. has declined by half in the past 20 years. This paper examines the potential implications of this change by estimating the effects of a retiree health insurance (RHI) offer on a comprehensive set of labor, health and health care use outcomes in the near-elderly population. The analysis is based on ten years of longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Survey (1992-2002). After restricting to respondents who have employer-sponsored health insurance at baseline, I find that an RHI offer increases the probability of early retirement by 35 percent for both men and women. An RHI offer decreases the probability of being uninsured by 55 percent, while increasing the probability of employer-sponsored coverage and decreasing the probability of public coverage. There is suggestive evidence that individuals with an RHI offer are more likely to visit the doctor, use prescription drugs on a regular basis and have outpatient surgery. While we see no significant effect on health, RHI provides significant protection from high out-of-pocket medical costs. In the top 40 percent of the out-of-pocket spending distribution, those with an offer of retiree coverage spend 21 percent less on average.Estimates of the value of RHI of over $3,000 per year suggest that increasing opportunities for the near-elderly to purchase coverage at actuarially-fair prices through the individual market or public programs could significantly increase insurance coverage and reduce financial risk for this age group.

Book Health Insurance Costs and Early Retirement Decisions

Download or read book Health Insurance Costs and Early Retirement Decisions written by Richard W. Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The loss of health insurance may be an important component of the cost of retirement, especially for workers without retiree health insurance coverage. The authors find that insurance costs significantly reduce retirement rates for full-time wage and salary workers ages 51 to 61. Simulations suggest that a $1,000 increase in the net present value of health insurance premium costs reduces the probability of early retirement by 0.17 percentage points for men and by 0.24 percentage points for women, corresponding to elasticities of -0.22 and -0.24, respectively. The authors' models predict that expanding the Medicare program to cover those ages 62 to 64 would increase retirement rates for workers with employer-sponsored coverage who lack retiree benefits, if the government subsidizes their coverage. However, the impact would be small, increasing overall retirement rates by only 7%.

Book Retiree Health Insurance for Public School Employees

Download or read book Retiree Health Insurance for Public School Employees written by Maria D. Fitzpatrick and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the widespread provision of retiree health insurance for public sector workers, little attention has been paid to its effects on employee retirement. This is in contrast to the large literature on health-insurance-induced "job-lock" in the private sector. I use the introduction of retiree health insurance for public school employees in combination with administrative data on their retirement to identify the effects of retiree health insurance. As expected, the availability of retiree health insurance for older workers allows employees to retire earlier. These behavioral changes have budgetary implications, likely making the programs self-financing rather than costly to taxpayers.