Labor Day is for the work. So today I want to say thank you for one thing your job did for you that you almost certainly never thanked it for. It picked your health insurance.
My wife just started a new nursing job. The benefits packet came home, and inside was the health plan section. Three plans. Three. We read them at the counter after dinner, compared the deductibles, looked at which one had her doctor, and picked one before the dishes were dry.
Here is the part I keep thinking about. Neither of us worried for a second that one of those three was a trap. Somebody in Human Resources, whose actual job it was, had already sat with a broker and thrown out the bad ones. If a claim ever went sideways, there was a person down the hall to walk to. We did not have to trust the insurance company. We just had to trust the company.
That is how most working Americans experience health insurance. KFF's employer survey found that 76 percent of firms offering health benefits offer only one type of plan. One. The generous employers offer a handful. You could count your choices on the fingers of one hand, and somebody you already trusted had done the sorting.
Then you turn 65
Then you turn 65, and the sorting stops.
It feels like three hundred. The honest number is smaller, but not by enough to matter. The federal government's own count for 2026: Arizona has 133 Medicare Advantage plans and 10 stand-alone drug plans. Then come the Medicare Supplement policies. In Maricopa County, 32 different companies sell Plan G, and the price for the exact same coverage runs from about $131 a month to more than $500. Not all of that is really yours to pick from. Your county trims the list, your doctors trim it more, and your prescriptions trim it again. But nobody hands you the trimmed list. You get the whole stack in the mailbox, and it is on you to figure out which handful actually apply.
And the person down the hall is gone. Nobody whose job it was to throw out the bad ones. Nobody you already trusted. It is on you now to find your own help, and to figure out which of the smiling people on TV and in your mailbox is actually on your side. Pick, and pray you picked right. Then keep praying, because every fall the plans change, the letters come, and you get to do it again.
From where I sit, that is the whole source of the dread. It was never that people at 65 are less capable than they were at 45. It is that at 45, the choosing was done by someone accountable to you. At 65, it is done by you, alone, in a system that was not built to be walked alone.
Why we are so proud of October 2
This is why the workshop matters so much to us. It is the person down the hall, put back.
Bring the fear. Honestly, bring it. Come in with the letter you did not understand, the question you were embarrassed to ask, the nagging feeling that you picked wrong three years ago and never checked. Ask it out loud. You will be in a public library, in the middle of the day, with people who have been doing exactly this since 2001, and nobody is selling anything. The official 2027 information comes out October 1. We are the very next day, with the real numbers in hand.
What we want for you is simple. Walk in carrying it. Walk out knowing exactly what your next step is. And rest easy that night, the way you used to when HR had your back.
Happy Labor Day. Come get your facts.
Friday, October 2. Foothills Library, Glendale, 10:30 AM. Mustang Library, Scottsdale, 2:30 PM. No cost. Register at 123easymedicare.com/medicare-workshop or call (877) 220-1089.
This event is presented by 123EasyMedicare, a brand of American Retirement Advisors, an independent, private organization. It is not sponsored by, endorsed by, or affiliated with Medicare, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Social Security Administration, or any government agency. The libraries are not sponsors of, and are not affiliated with, this event. Educational only; not tax, legal, or insurance advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only. It is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise representative of Medicare or the federal Medicare program. American Retirement Advisors is not a government agency. For official Medicare information, visit medicare.gov or call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).