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Robert Greenberg of Paramus says Revlimid, a cancer drug, is keeping him alive. The Allied Signal retiree is losing his health benefits in January and the price for the medicine will skyrocket.

Greenberg, a former engineering manager who helped build test equipment for F-15 fighter jets at Bendix Aviation in Teterboro, vowed not to let that happen to him. He retired about 16 years ago at age 51 with a pension and an employer-provided health insurance package he thought would be with him for life.

"I had a family history of medical issues. That's why I retired early," he said. "I was promised I would be getting medical insurance; it was a big part of my retirement benefits."

The number of companies offering retiree benefits has been dwindling for more than 20 years. According to the 2010 health benefits survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, only 28 percent of companies with 200 or more workers that offer health benefits to their employees also offer retiree coverage, down from 66 percent in 1988.

A change in accounting standards spurred a rash of retiree health-care benefit cuts beginning in the late 1980s, said Tricia Neuman, vice president and director of the Medicare Policy Project at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Corporations were required to book on their balance sheets their future liability from retiree health benefits, she said, and that affected bottom lines.

"Employers took a number of steps to reduce liability, many of which shift the cost on to retirees in the form of higher premiums or higher cost-sharing requirements," Neuman said. "Some employers have maintained coverage for current retirees but stopped offering it for new hires."

Greenberg was one of many retirees who learned in August that beginning Jan. 1, Honeywell International — which had merged with Allied Signal after Allied bought Bendix in 1983 — will no longer provide health insurance for Medicare-eligible employees who retired after July 1992. Their group plans will be terminated, and they were referred to a third-party benefits adviser that is helping them choose individual plans to supplement their Medicare coverage.

Greenberg was diagnosed in 2001 with multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer. A very expensive drug, Revlimid, "is keeping me alive," he said. He expects that with the loss of his company-provided drug plan, his out-of-pocket costs will skyrocket to more than $9,000 a year from $400.

Honeywell declined last week to comment on Greenberg's situation but said in a statement that "retirees will continue to have access to medical insurance and for many at a lower cost."

The company said "the independent market offers better and more effective cost options than Honeywell can provide."

Morris Township-based Honeywell said in October that third-quarter sales rose 9 percent to $8.4 billion, but due mainly to pension costs, net income declined 18 percent to $499 million, or 64 cents a share, from $608 million, or 80 cents, a year earlier.

In the quarter ended Sept. 30, the company recognized severance costs of $64 million related to reductions of 1,188 manufacturing and administrative positions in the company's Automation and Control Solutions, Aerospace and Specialty Materials segments.

By dropping health coverage for many of its Medicare-eligible retirees, it will cut benefits obligations by a one-time amount of $137 million, the company said. In February, Honeywell eliminated a retiree medical plan subsidy for certain union employees who retire after Feb. 1, 2013, to reduce benefit obligations by $39 million.

Honeywell is not the only company making changes to its retiree health benefits.