Still trying to get a straight answer from the Benefits people. Can I keep Kaiser health insurance in retirement?

The SPD seems to imply that I can only get health insurance plans administered by Aetna Life Insurance Company and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois.

No mention of any possibility of continuing my existing coverage with Kaiser Permanente.

Does this mean what it looks like? That I will need to drop Kaiser and change my doctor to one of these two plans or pay for Kaiser entirely out of pocket?

Or is there a way to take the money they would pay to these providers and keep my existing Kaiser coverage?

The Benefits number is nearly useless! Long waits, frequent drops-with-restart, and conflicting info. Hopefully, somebody who's gone through this already will have some advice.

Thanks for any help!

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I looked into this about 2 years ago, for management retire plan. (I’m an active management employee, currently have Kaiser for medical). The most I was able to find in the retiree plan docs is this; retiree premium for “self-managed” medical plan is 100%. Meaning, retiree pays 100% of the premium. If Kaiser is in fact considered a self-managed plan then no portion of the premium will be covered by AT&T.

The advice about the Life Events option from the Benefits website is very helpful. Thank you!

If you go to the benefits web site and under life events select model retirement, you can run thru the options for health,vision,dental,supp life and see you cost. When you retire you do open enrollment for healthcare, and can select whatever option works for you. I have Aetna, bronze at no cost to for me. Spouse is $320.

The person that advised to go to HR OneStop is correct. When I retired in 2019 I called HR OneStop. The person that helped me was very helpful and made my selections as I requested. As long as you have Kaiser in your area you should be able to select them. For my wife and myself it was $645.00 a month in Silicon Valley. When we relocated Kaiser was not an option. Our only options were United Health Care and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The monthly cost for both of us dropped to $524.00. The following year AT&T dropped United Health Care. For BC/BS 2021 coverage increased to $564.00 a month. So expect a yearly increase. Congratulations on your Retirement choice. Best wishes.

OP here. Thank you, @kpc+18USGRB4!

In Firefox go to HR Onestop
Go to the health & money box, then AT&T Benefits center link. At the top there is a grey bar, pick Life Changes, then pick prepare for retirement. Click Make your retiree health choices......click on the words, don’t check the box. At this point you can enter the information and it will show you the cost with what you have now, or you can pick a different plan to get the cost comparison.

Bottom line: you can keep Kaiser. I just found that it’s much more expensive than the other plans because there is a lower deductible. You can pick BCBS or Aetna at a lower monthly cost but higher deductible

There are no answers. Just some gibberish from page 57 of an HR PDF document that makes you scratch your head harder.

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Still trying to get a straight answer from the Benefits people. Can I keep Kaiser health insurance in retirement?

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