But Larry Levitt, a senior executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said, "Retiree coverage has been under threat for quite a while now".
But Silicon Valley technology companies that do not have or need retiree coverage are wary of new taxpayer-financed subsidies.
Even if employers drop their retiree coverage, many will probably wait a year or two after 2006, experts say.
For most people with pre- existing conditions and no employer-sponsored retiree coverage, the easy but costly way to get coverage is through Cobra.
Lucent, for one, was able to use the ample excess in its pension plans to purchase retiree coverage, even as the company's overall finances sagged.
Last month, a study for the Kaiser Family Foundation by Hewitt Associates found that among employers that have maintained retiree coverage, about 15percentt have required at least some retirees to assume the full cost of their insurance in the last two years.
"Rather than worsening the situation, it works to stop the trend of employers' dropping retiree coverage," said Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California, one of the principal architects of the law.
Fewer than one in four employers now provide medical coverage of any kind for Medicare-eligible retirees; 40 percent provided retiree coverage in 1994, according to a recent national survey of companies with 500 or more employees by William M. Mercer, a benefits consulting company.
If Medicare "as we know it" is such a good deal for seniors, why is it that nearly 90 percent of beneficiaries supplement their traditional Medicare plan with Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored retiree coverage or Medigap policies?PHILLIP J. BLANDO Washington, June 13 , 2011The writer is the founder of AB+M Partners, a health care consulting firm.
This debate is likely to continue as the Kaiser report says 31% of firms providing retiree coverage increased the share of premiums paid by enrollees.
