Wife qualfies for SSD, what would you do.

sayoung wrote:
not trying to bash you but if I understand your original post,you both can retire today in your early 50's with about 90K per year income,or is this a gigantic cut in income?.what are you worrying about a disability pension from the feds for,take the jobs pension,start living. Draw your SSI when ya'll turn 62 and get MC at 65.
Your wife sounds like she deserves to go and do something fun.

Not offended at all. You are correct, 90K isn't a hardship in the least. The issues here are protecting her health care, the likelihood of qualifying for SSDI and the Medicare coverage that comes with it, and planning for the best outcome, while recognizing that there are a lot of potential problems with any final decision.

The point you are missing is that you are not talking about a normal, able bodied person kicking back and waiting until, and if, Medicare becomes a personal reality, a decade from now. Absent the "no exclusions for prior conditions" portion of the ACA, somebody in her situation has zero access to reasonable priced private pay coverage. So, a wrong move now could be a financial disaster in the next decade. Given the current economic and political climate in her district, ANY benefit is far from guaranteed, including retiree health care. So, asking the collective advice of everybody here is very valuable to me.

We literally have dozens of details to clarify from several sources, then need to make a series of decisions that will have a huge impact on the rest of both of our lives. If I make the right ones, it's all good, and we go with your plan and grab a beach chair. OTOH, if the SS battle is a failure, the ACA degrades into an unworkable mess, or the employer says, "sorry, we are broke and retiree heath care isn't something we are willing to pay for any longer" Well, your advice to "kick back and relax" doesn't really work out too well.