My Radical Idea

I’m approaching the age where retirement comes up in conversation more and more. My wife would love to retire. She would like to do some traveling, relax and maybe get a part time job to get out of the house. The house is almost paid off and the kids are approaching being independent. She enjoys her job, but the commute, the hours, the stress get to her. So what stops us from retiring? Health Insurance. We literally could not afford to get it before Medicare kicks in. And that is a number of years away. And I’ve known other people who’ve said they are working because they can’t afford private insurance.
So my radical idea is this: by government action, a private or public health insurance be offered to people who are 55 to 65. This action would be managed so that anyone who is 55 can join. I’m calling it Pre-Medicare. The people who join would pay premiums to the system but they would be well under the current COBRA and private insurance plans for people at this age because of the pool size. This is a voluntary system, so if you are 55 and have access to insurance via work or some other means, you are not required to join.
So what is the radical idea? By offering this on a national level, many people 55 and older might be induced to retire early. In turn the jobs these people have would either be eliminated (and therefore save the company money) or replaced with younger people. So a high-level manager who is 58 would be replaced with a 40 year-old. That 40 year-olds job would be replaced with a 28 year-old and that job would be taken by a recent college grad. And frankly, the old job the grad left, such as Starbucks, could be taken by the recently retired person since they don’t need health insurance etc.
In the end, the workforce would be shifted downwards away from the current world, where companies have older employees that they would love to replace with younger people and the older employees would have a chance to retire at 55 with some kind of reduced retirement package.
The older people who are contemplating retirement are good workers. They have put in their time and see their kids not getting a good job and worry about it. I look at this as an adjustment in distribution because we are allowing the work force to redistribute. I don’t believe companies would lose critical people since this would be a voluntary operation, so companies can offer enticements to keep people that are needed. But in the end, the worker in the seat would be a little younger.