At retirement, health benefits continue until Medicare and then in many cases, as a supplement to Medicare. In the private sector, there is no pension, so retirement is when you feel that you have saved enough, if ever. Otherwise it's work till you drop. As for medical coverage, you are only covered by your employer while you are employed. When you reach 65, if you are no longer working, there is Medicare with no supplemental coverage from your former employer.
Salary is often a criterion for who gets laid off or cut.
In a competitive environment, good product and good efforts are not enough. Many times the events that determine a company's performance are out of the hands of the employees. Foreign competition and its respective salary structure can present 'unfair' obstacles to an American company's ability to compete. In these situations, good efforts and success only provide you another day of employment, if you're lucky. There are no automatic annual salary increases either.