Survey: Does your hospital pay a pension or have health ins. cont'd into retirement?

oramar · Jun 16, 2008

I don't know anyone that worked in a hospital in the 20th or 21st Century that has health insurance after retirement. If there is someone they must have had a heck of a union. My husband has very good pension AND retirement fund because he had a very good union but they pay nothing towards your health insurance after you retire. That is why he is working till he is 66 because he will have to pay for his own health insurance up until medicare kicks in if he retires early. We will have to pay for our own medicare supplemental but so does everyone else. Only people I know that had decent pensions AND healthcare coverage after they retire are goverment workers.

Fiesta Red · Jun 25, 2008

Here in Sacramento, Kaiser has a pension plan that the employer contributes to, plus free health benefits post age 65 retirement. You have to be an employee for 15 years to get the health care benefit. They also have a 403B that the employee can contribute to. These benefits are so good because CNA is very strong within the Kaiser system. Of course you also have to use Kaiser exclusively as your retirement health care provider, which is a whole other issue in itself.

The Sutter system in Sacramento is different. They have a pension that the employer contributes to, but it depends on which affiliate you work at as to how much is contributed. Sutter also has a 403B that they employee can make contributions to. Different affiliates offer a cash account (up to $25K) that you can use to pay for reirement health care benefits.

The CHW is similar to Sutter in what they offer, but the amounts are less. CNA is not as strong in CHW and Sutter, therefore the benefits are not as extensive.

Finally there is the UC System. They have a pension that the employee pays into, but the UC Systems makes no contributions. I don't believe they have retirement health care either. CNA is involved in the UC System, but their barganing power doesn't seem very serious.

justme1972 · Jun 26, 2008

Remeber those pensions, even the state ones, are invested in the stock market as well as other types of investments. Just because you have a defined benefit pension doesn't mean you are immune from the stock, bond, real estate, and commodity markets. That is where the pension check comes from.

I do know that there are different types of pensions, some are protected, and some are not.

Enron, is an example where people didn't diversify their funds and put all of their retirement options into employee stock (which many plans default to, unless you select something different). That is why so many lost so much.

Some pensions are protected that are not invested in stock (as no private hospital, for example, has stocks to invest in) that even if the entire hospital system goes out of business, the pension payments continue...but they are hard to find.

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The reason I posted this thread was because I have an uncle that retired from a hospital that between social security and his pension, he gets almost $4,000 per month...he's debt free (house, car, no credit cards)...401K's only last as long as you have saved and are dependent on how long you live...his continues for the rest of his life.

I was wondering how common these were because when I graduate, I would like to find one of these hospitals to work at.

APFMoreira · Jul 2, 2008

I heard that Bellevue hospital in NYC has a pension plan and healthcare benefits for you and your family for life if you work there for 10 years. I had to move out of NY and didn't look more into it, but that's what I understood they said when a Bellevue H's staff member visited our school in our final semester.