This is my first posting here - I just joined your group yesterday - but I have taken the time to read the entire thread and find it to be the most comprehensive discussion I've found online. Thanks to all of you for the comments and resources!
As my husband and I plan for our ER (once our house which could take awhile), what to do about health coverage has been one of our major worries. DH stayed with a megacorp for over twenty years because one of the benefits was going to be subsidized retiree insurance if he left anytime after 55, at the same cost as when working. Just before he qualified, megacorp #1 sold to megacorp #2; inspite of promises to the contrary during the transition, it now looks as though retiree coverage under #2 will be much more expensive, and would limit us to choosing one healthcare provider, which won't work for us since we'll be traveling.
So unlike others who have posted here, we HOPE the retiree coverage will be dropped so it doesn't prevent us from using the exchange (still investigating the details on that but it looks like it would be about a quarter the cost of the employer coverage). Until full retirement age, I believe we will be able to stay under the 400% cap by using interest/dividends much less than $60,000 and after tax dollars; once we are eligible for Medicare, supplemental plans are much cheaper, even if we are living on before tax IRA income at that point. We hope the exchange eventually also will offer reasonable LTC plans, and dental too. (Although we know many who get great, reasonable dental care in Canada or Mexico, provided it is not an emergency.)
A couple of additional observations to comments discussed here: high deductible plans are by far the most profitable for insurance companies, which is why they like them (on a premiums collected vs. payments made basis). The HSA tax savings that insurers receive do reduce the cost to the insured, but this is a government/taxpayer subsidy, just as the Affordable Care Act provides subsidies. High deductible plans, then, are cheaper because the insured is receiving less of a benefit and because of the tax subsidy. Also as mentioned here, some purchased these plans because it was all they could afford, going without needed preventive care, etc. and still at times being forced into bankruptcy. Uncompensated care (absorbed by providers but then cost shifted to the rest of us) grew dramatically with the advent of high deductible plans, because patients couldn't afford to pay for the care beneath the deductible limit. So (if I recall correctly) as a matter of public policy, if subsidies were going to be used (whether via HSAs or PPAACA subsidies) the idea was to try to get the most bang for the tax payer buck in terms of money spent actually paying for care. (Let me know if I'm too far off thread).
I will be following this forum closely for as much information as we can glean about how this will work, in the event we are fortunate enough to sell our home soon and have to decide whether to pull the plug before the ACA is implemented. If we do decline the retiree insurance, there will be no going back later.