After decades of saving diligently, Dan Maize, 53, of Williamsburg, Va., made the decision last year to retire early. He stayed at his job, managing a grocery store, until February—just before Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled a health-care bill that could make his early retirement much harder to afford.

Under the American Health Care Act, the Obamacare overhaul that faced a congressional vote on March 23, costs could fall for many younger Americans. The majority of older people would pay much more, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and others who analyzed an early version of the legislation. “People who are thinking about retiring may need to give serious thought to whether they can find affordable health insurance,” says Tricia Neuman, director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s program on Medicare policy.

Being able to afford health care has always been a concern for older people, who are far more expensive to insure than the young. That’s why Medicare, which covers Americans 65 and older, was created in the 1960s. Nevertheless, millions of older Americans face a gap in health coverage between the time they stop working and when they become eligible for Medicare. According to Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, about half of women retire by age 62 and half of men do by 64. “Our government needs to do something to provide some kind of a bridge between retirement and Medicare,” Maize says.

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