Providing Health Care Benefits in Retirement

This volume, from the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School, highlights many of the special health insurance problems facing the elderly and some of the solutions that any reform process must consider.

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Are we nearing a practical limit to health care expenditures? If so, what will this mean to retirees? The United States' health delivery and financing system is changing quickly, but few understand the special circumstances of retirees and how health care reforms might affect them. The elderly are much less able than younger people to adjust to evolving health insurance patterns, yet resources devoted to health care for older persons may have to be capped. As the largest current consumers of health care, the elderly will be profoundly affected by such restrictions. Providing Health Care Benefits in Retirement explores the challenges faced by private and public sector policymakers in providing retiree health care insurance in the current environment and under probable national health care reform scenarios.