Why Healthcare Before Medicare Shouldn't Stop You From Retiring Early
Stay Wealthy Retirement Podcast
Taylor Schulte, CFP®
4.7 • 678 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Health insurance is keeping millions of Americans stuck in jobs they'd otherwise leave.
In fact, 1 in 5 workers ages 50–64 say they're staying put because of their employer health coverage.
And with recent changes to the ACA, that pressure is only growing.
In this episode, I cover:
→ Why healthcare before Medicare has become a psychological roadblock to early retirement
→ Why the real cost of waiting until 65 may not be what you think
→ The options many people overlook and the tradeoffs worth understanding
Because for most people, the healthcare challenge does have a solution.
And the worst thing you can do is never explore your options at all.
***
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another episode of the Stay Wealthy Retirement Show. |
| 0:04.1 | I'm your host Taylor Schulte, and every week I tackle the most important financial topics to help you stay wealthy in retirement. |
| 0:10.9 | And now on to the episode. |
| 0:15.4 | One and five adults between the ages of 50 and 64 say they're staying in a job they would otherwise leave for one |
| 0:22.7 | reason. Health insurance. Not because they love the work, not because they aren't ready to retire, |
| 0:27.9 | but because they feel trapped by the coverage. Economists even have a name for it. They call it job |
| 0:33.0 | lock. In fact, worries about job locked help drive laws like Cobra and HIPAA, which were designed to make it easier for workers to keep their health insurance when they leave a job or switch to a new one. |
| 0:43.6 | And when you look at the numbers, it's easy to see why job locks still persist today. |
| 0:48.6 | According to Kiplinger's 2026 estimates, the average monthly cost of health insurance climbs from about $571 at age 20 to |
| 0:57.9 | nearly $1,700 per month by age 64, right before Medicare kicks in. So if you're someone in |
| 1:05.1 | your 50s or early 60s with a healthy nest egg, but still hesitant to pull the trigger on retirement, there's a good |
| 1:11.9 | chance this question is somewhere in the background. What do I do about health insurance before |
| 1:17.2 | Medicare begins at 65? When you dig into the data, the anxiety around this question is impossible |
| 1:23.9 | to miss. According to the Nationwide Retirement Institute, 71% of pre-retirees say they're, |
| 1:30.9 | quote, terrified about what health care costs could do to their retirement nest egg. And despite that |
| 1:37.5 | fear, six out of 10 people indicated they don't actually have a plan to cover health care |
| 1:43.1 | expenses in retirement. |
| 1:45.0 | Even more surprising is how far off most expectations are. |
| 1:49.0 | Over 40% of people believe they'll spend $100,000 or less on health care throughout retirement |
| 1:55.0 | when the latest estimate from Fidelity puts the number closer to $172,000 after taxes, and that doesn't even |
| 2:04.1 | include the potential cost of long-term care. While that might sound high, Milliman's |
| 2:09.0 | 2025 index produces significantly higher estimates, suggesting the actual cost may be closer |
... |
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