BouncingBabyBoomer.com

A Double-Whammy for Early Boomers

Some early Boomers over 50 may have a double whammy coming. Not only might your job be "right-sized" away along with what remains of your shrinking 401(k), but it could prove quite difficult to get health insurance once your Cobra runs out.

"You basically can’t count on insurance remaining even mildly affordable in individual markets,” says Karen Pollitz, research professor at the Health Policy Institute in an article at SmartMoney.com.This goes double if you are older.

My hub found this out in spades when we became a 2-freelancer household far sooner than planned. Self-employment and consulting are frequent fall backs for those can't replace their old job or prefer to strike out on their own, but if they are too young for Medicare, they fall into the "Med-i-Gap". That means you have to go to the individual markets for health insurance, where few carriers want to talk to the self-employed -- or anyone over 50.

Even if you get coverage through a trade or professional group, which we did for awhile, the insurance company might can the plan if its risk-to-income profile becomes too adverse. That happened to the group my husband was in, even though it covered thousands of engineering pros nationwide. The good news (if you can call it good) was that the carrier "let" us pay them $1800 per month to keep some coverage active while we looked for something new.

While checking the options, I found that the "Risk Pools" offered by states may only offer limited benefits with limited access to a limited pool of physicians, if you can get on the rolls at all. After weeks of looking, we found a good (albeit high deductible) plan at AARP on decent terms, and have had no complaints in the two years since. If this"Med-i-gap" issue impacts you, you might check them out too. Then let us all hope that Obama listens to the rising tide of citizens -- and physicians -- who say the time for a single payer national health plan is now.

To make it both hard to work and hard to stay healthy is too big a double whammy at any age.

A Coming Boomer "Bump" in Jobs?

... the Bureau of Labor Statistics has recently revealed that the number of older workers not only has been growing over the past decade but will also continue grow at an alarming rate over the next few years. The agency predicts that the number of workers between the ages of 65 and 74 will balloon by 83.4 percent from 2006 to 2016, and the number of workers over 75 will explode by 84.3 percent.

Heather Havrilesky, Salon.com, "Perspire to Retire"

As soon as I read the numbers above, I wanted to ask the Bureau of Labor Stats how many of that "alarming number" of jobs will be at Wal-Mart or MacDonalds? It gives a whole new spin to the topic of "lifelong engagement," doesn't it?

The Net is full of stories by Boomers who were pedaling hard to remain employed at any kind of suitable job even before the current downturn, too often hearing words like "overqualified" to justify hiring someone younger. I could populate a whole blog on this topic alone, but it would be too depressing. However that doesn't mean we won't discuss it at all. So here is a BBBoomer "Story Call"..

If you are over 45 and finding it hard to hold on to a regular salary and you think your age is a big part of the reason, send a summary of your story (max 500 words). If we have a chance to share it, we will write back with details and permissions. Send your submissions to: editor@bouncingbabyboomer.com

Meanwhile, if it helps to know a few 30-somethings foresee their own retirement woes already, click through to read the rest of Heather's story. Her other numbers are also sobering.

Footnote from the Dept. of Irony... Not an hour after posting this, I chanced upon a perfect-sounding job lead for the hub, but hesitated at passing it on despite the good fit because this great-sounding job in a hot eco-niche was at less than half his last salary. Would they even consider him if they knew? Would he be tempted to apply for it anyway? Talk about sign o' the times..

Preview of the "New Old"

(a sequel to Post 1.3, Selling Us Daddy's Car)

The "New Old"

For Boomers, there is compounding evidence that our later years will be as big a departure from the old norms as our early adulthood.

Our health tends to be better than our parents at the same point, perhaps because we were raised with better diets from an earlier age. We got an early wakeup call about things that can deter decline, such as diet, exercise, brain fitness, and Omega 3s. Meanwhile, new medical breakthroughs seem to keep happening weekly, from pharmaceuticals tailored to one's own genome to pivotal proteins in Alzheimer's plaques. And if that isn't enough, they keep coming up with new lotions, potions and lasers that let you prolong a youthful appearance if you wish to fool Mother Nature some more.

Overall, we tend to be much better informed about our options and much less shy than our parents were about asking questions and expecting value and evaluating results. We've held more jobs in one lifetime and often acquired sklls in more than one discipline. All of this tends to create a wider point of view that seeks a broader menu of options, including the option of not retiring.

To a big bunch of us, much of this seems a good thing, since between the housing slump, the credit crunch, the declining dollar, and our shrinking portfolios, not to mention our rising costs of health care, we may have no choice but to keep on being engaged for pay anyway, especially if we want to access those nifty treatments they say will let us do that long and lively thing.

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