Posted on 08/14/2010 6:45:42 PM PDT by Thom Pain
Need help/advice. I'm about to turn 65 and am still employed in private sector full time (and hope to be for many years to come). Need to know if I have to enroll in Medicare now, or wait until I retire (someday). Can anyone steer me to good info?
Per my husband, who is REALLY old....I have no clue.
BUT! :)
IF you’re going to, per said husband, do it prior to turning 65 if you’re going to use it. About 6 months prior to.
Free advice, worth....probably nothing. Ha!
I’m sorry not to be able to be helpful but I doubt your Senators or your congressman have a clue either. I doubt that it’s spelled out clearly in any of those 2,000+ pages of legislation.
Is your retirement age 66? if so, wait until them to collect the full amount.
I’ll be following this thread. I have a couple of years to go, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I have private insurance now, but I don’t know if I’ll even have that as a choice when the magic 65 comes.
good questions. I have no idea..I thought SS automaticly signed you up????
The answer to your question is usually “yes”.
If you don’t sign up for medicare, the premiums will rise higher the longer you wait if you sign up later.
You’re not “required” to sign up, but its usually the wisest course of action.
As a general rule, barring health issues, it is best to begin as late as possible.
But under certain circumstances, it makes sense to start as soon as you're eligible for full benefits.
For me that was 65y2m, but I had to wait for 67y2m and got about 10% more starting benefits.
Call Medicare and ask. However, I will not go on Medicare until I have no choice.
By the tenor of your post, you act as if you DIDN’T want to be a part of the great socialist exchange that is there to BENEFIT you.
If you don’t do it when first offered you get penalized. You will pay more for it.
If you aren't yet 65, your "magic age" will never be 65.
Looks like the first thing you need to do, from the SS site, is to determine what is your earliest retirement age for full benefits. I suspect it will be 66+, depending on your date of birth.
There’s been a subtle change recently. In order to provide better benefits for government union members, retirees must sign-up immediately upon retiring and sign over all their possessions to the state, at which time the state will agree to allow them to live until such time as they need medical care.
Anyways a year ago i got into a severe dirt bike accident and had to be airlifted in a chopper to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. The chopper ride alone cost 6 grand.
3 days in a coma, skull fractures, broken ribs, collarbone, reconstructive surgery on my wrist, internal bleeding etc.
When all said and done 3 MRI’s and 7 days later at one our most expensive hospitals and much physical therapy later i received ZERO bills, nothing at all about it in the mail, it's like it never happened.
I guess sometimes it pays to be poor.
I’m no expert but this is what I’ve been told by family members who signed up. It can benefit to sign up in case you lose your current insurance for any reason. It becomes secondary coverage even if you think you don’t need it. Also, premiums will go up if you wait, so it may be best if you sign up early and lock in lower rates. As far as I know, there is no law (now) that requires you to sign up at a specific age.
I know SS full retirement for my age group is 66; but I thought the Medicare age was 65 regardless of which year you were born.
Medicare and Medicaid are totally different. Medicaid is for the indigent. Medicare is for the elderly.
I hope to keep my company health plan, but I don't want to get snookered. I plan to defer collecting SSN until age 70. My retirement $$ are probably woefully inadequate for full retirement before age 98 (and then probably only if I promise to die by age 99)
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