When Retirees Find Their Health Benefits are No More

AImagine working for 20-30 years, believing that when you retire, you will be okay. You know this, because it is the deal agreed to by the company for which you have put in all those years of work. The agreement was signed on the dotted line, and so you put your years of hard labor into the company, and retired as planned.

Never Say Never
Fast-forward to several years down the road in your happy retirement, with things are humming along nicely.until you find out that all that you had planned on is being shaken to the core. That's what workers of two of the world's largest auto makers are feeling. Retired workers of both General Motors (GM) and Chrysler should have sailed through their golden years with little to worry about. They especially thought they wouldn't' need to be concerned with health care.

However, in light of the recent economic troubles hitting the news each week, health care coverage has become a major concern for those retirees. And there are a lot of them. Chrysler has about 78,000 on the books, while GM has roughly 377,000. The two companies are publicly struggling to make ends meet, drastically trimming workforces, and edging toward bankruptcy. So what happens to the more than 450,000 retirees who were promised health care during their aging years? Nobody is quite sure yet.

The Future is Uncertain
In the latest news, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union has been working with the auto makers to try to reach a deal that both sides can live with. Yet the two companies have clearly gotten themselves in too deep. GM has spent $103 billion on health care in the last 15 years, which is being cited as one of the major problems hurting the company.

In 2007, it was estimated that GM would need $57 billion to continue providing health care coverage to its blue-collar retirees. Problem is, they only had $14.4 billion by mid-2008. The companies are in a quandary and there is no easy solution. People are going to suffer, one way or another, either through job losses as the company files for bankruptcy or through retirees losing some or all of their health care benefits as the companies restructure.

What's Next
As the retirees of these two companies continue to watch the news each day to see what will happen to the security of their health care, they are likely also hoping that the promise of the United States to begin offering a universal health care system happens soon. If benefits are cut, however, seeking supplemental insurance may be another option for these retirees to consider. As this country already has forty six million people uninsured, and another twenty five million underinsured, it is hoped that the two companies come to an amicable solution, so that those numbers don't rise with auto worker retirees who thought their health care concerns were long behind them.