The prospective early retirees also must see whether their spouses have health insurance that will cover them. Otherwise they may have to buy an individual insurance policy that lacks the cost advantages of their former group insurance. Without health insurance, she said, people are less likely to retire early. The looming crisis suggested by that number prompted a national solution. Naegele stressed that the national subsidy does not cover the entire cost of care.
Local government continues to pay half of the total.
Unlike Germany, the United States has neither universal health insurance nor a tradition of social solidarity across generations, as is common in European nations. Political scientist Robert Binstock, of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio, urged an outreach strategy that avoids the intergenerational enmity of past aging-related policy battles in the United States. Joan Retsinas is a gerontologist and writer based in Providence, R.I .