Enrolling in Medicare Question

[Drake3287]

Hopefully this forum is the right place to ask this question. I'll be turning 65 at the end of August and will need to signup for Medicare prior to that. I was told by SS that I needed to do it 3 months prior to my birthday.

My question though, can I do this simply online or do I need to make an appointment for an in-person meeting? The only hiccup in my situation is that I've never paid into SS or Medicare because of being an exempt government employee so I'll be signing up under my wife's name and work history. She's slightly younger than me but apparently that doesn't matter to Medicare themselves. I'm still qualified under her either way because of being a spouse.

Thanks for any experience with this.

 

[Telly]

Hopefully this forum is the right place to ask this question. I'll be turning 65 at the end of August and will need to signup for Medicare prior to that. I was told by SS that I needed to do it 3 months prior to my birthday.

My question though, can I do this simply online or do I need to make an appointment for an in-person meeting? The only hiccup in my situation is that I've never paid into SS or Medicare because of being an exempt government employee so I'll be signing up under my wife's name and work history. She's slightly younger than me but apparently that doesn't matter to Medicare themselves. I'm still qualified under her either way because of being a spouse.

Thanks for any experience with this.

A better place is the Health and Early Retirement forum, where Medicare issues come up all the time.

If I were you, I would try online and see how it goes. Both DW and myself signed up for Medicare online, but we both had paid the Medicare payroll tax for years, so we were each on our own account, so to speak.

 

[Rianne]

It's my understanding Medicare is specific to each individual. If you're not Medicare qualified, I don't think you can apply for Medicare. SS is different if your wife is entitled to SS benefits. In other words, if you've never paid into Medicare I don't think you can claim benefits.

 

[braumeister]

Thread moved to Health forum for better visibility.

 

[audreyh1]

It's my understanding Medicare is specific to each individual. If you're not Medicare qualified, I don't think you can apply for Medicare. SS is different if your wife is entitled to SS benefits. In other words, if you've never paid into Medicare I don't think you can claim benefits.

Yes, you can qualify for Medicare based on your spouses work record. https://www.medicareinteractive.org...ree-part-a-based-on-your-spouses-work-history

 

[MissMolly]

It's my understanding Medicare is specific to each individual. If you're not Medicare qualified, I don't think you can apply for Medicare. SS is different if your wife is entitled to SS benefits. In other words, if you've never paid into Medicare I don't think you can claim benefits.

You can indeed apply for Medicare based on the spouse's work history.

https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Eligibility-and-Enrollment/OrigMedicarePartABEligEnrol

 

[zl55lz]

Hopefully this forum is the right place to ask this question. I'll be turning 65 at the end of August and will need to signup for Medicare prior to that. I was told by SS that I needed to do it 3 months prior to my birthday.

My question though, can I do this simply online or do I need to make an appointment for an in-person meeting? The only hiccup in my situation is that I've never paid into SS or Medicare because of being an exempt government employee so I'll be signing up under my wife's name and work history. She's slightly younger than me but apparently that doesn't matter to Medicare themselves. I'm still qualified under her either way because of being a spouse.

Thanks for any experience with this.

Just fyi if you have an issue online: I have heard of a couple of instances (sibling and friend) where the online spousal application for Medicare did not process. If I remember correctly, it went so far and then had a message. In both instances, I think it ended up being something easy, like the spouse's name or date of birth did not match exactly the social security "master record." They contacted Social Security and they were able to fix it and finish the process.

 

[ivinsfan]

You can indeed apply for Medicare based on the spouse's work history.

https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Eligibility-and-Enrollment/OrigMedicarePartABEligEnrol

We had a poster here whose wife was considerably older then he was and not SS qualified on her own. Foggy but I seem to remember she could not get Medicare until he either started his own benefit or he attained a certain age.


I'm thinking the issue in that thread was that the eligible spouse wasn't yet 62 when his wife turned 65.

 

[MichaelB]

Hopefully this forum is the right place to ask this question. I'll be turning 65 at the end of August and will need to signup for Medicare prior to that. I was told by SS that I needed to do it 3 months prior to my birthday.

My question though, can I do this simply online or do I need to make an appointment for an in-person meeting? The only hiccup in my situation is that I've never paid into SS or Medicare because of being an exempt government employee so I'll be signing up under my wife's name and work history. She's slightly younger than me but apparently that doesn't matter to Medicare themselves. I'm still qualified under her either way because of being a spouse.

Thanks for any experience with this.

My dear wife enrolled in Medicare based on my work record, and she turned 65 before me. They wouldn’t enroll her by phone and asked us to visit the local SS office and requested we bring along the marriage certificate and nationalization docs. We did, she was enrolled, and they didn’t look at the docs.

There was no need for me to start my SS benefit and I’m still not sure why they asked for the docs.

 

[Dd852]

Interesting. We live in the UK but are both dual nationals. I have all the US SS credits I need but my DW needed to qualify for SS with her UK credits and the totalisation agreement. I’m the toyboy and and am still four years out from claiming but my wife was specifically told she could have her SS payment but couldn’t get Medicare until I claimed. Being overseas it’s not really an issue for us, but of course if we ever moved back Medicare is a must.

 

[Koolau]

I've always preferred an in-office experience to on-line. We signed up for MC in our "little" home town office when we were visiting from Paradise for the summer. Very easy. That's been a while. I have no idea if they encourage folks to sign up in person now or not. That would be my suggestion if possible, but YMMV.

 

[ivinsfan]

Interesting. We live in the UK but are both dual nationals. I have all the US SS credits I need but my DW needed to qualify for SS with her UK credits and the totalisation agreement. I’m the toyboy and and am still four years out from claiming but my wife was specifically told she could have her SS payment but couldn’t get Medicare until I claimed. Being overseas it’s not really an issue for us, but of course if we ever moved back Medicare is a must.

I might gently suggest you have this backwards as pertains to your spouse. or its just incorrect period.

 

[Drake3287]

Thanks for the comments, although I'm still too early for me to sign up still, I'll attempt online when the time comes. I can't be the only one in the country getting Medicare through my spouses's work history.

In my case, when I was hired in 1981 by a local California government agency, we didn't pay into either SS or Medicare. I think around 1986 things changed and new employees were required to pay into the Medicare portion but not SS itself. I'll of course never qualify for SS.

 

[Dd852]

I might gently suggest you have this backwards as pertains to your spouse. or its just incorrect period.

She gets a social security payment every month and doesn’t have Medicare- that’s just how it is. Once I qualify presumably she’ll get it too but I will wait and see what happens.

 

[ivinsfan]

She gets a social security payment every month and doesn’t have Medicare- that’s just how it is. Once I qualify presumably she’ll get it too but I will wait and see what happens.

Sorry...just when you think you understand all the obscure rules this pops up. She's over 65,gets her own SS check but doesn't get Medicare

 

[Dd852]

Yup. I think the issue is that she didn’t have enough US credits alone to qualify for SS but needed to use her UK credits (under the bilateral tax treaty) to get her check. But maybe that “totalization” doesn’t work for Medicare - if so it is an edge case that shouldn’t effect many (any?) others on this forum.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

I'll of course never qualify for SS.

If you have a moment, put "Can I claim Social Security on my spouse's record?" in your search engine of choice.

I bet your comment is based on the Government Pension Offset.

 

[Drake3287]

Correct, besides not having paid into SS all these years, when I asked the SS office over the phone as to whether I would ever get anything from my wife's SS account she said it depended on how much my government pension was. After I told her the amount she laughed and simply said no, you'll get nothing.

 

[Koolau]

Correct, besides not having paid into SS all these years, when I asked the SS office over the phone as to whether I would ever get anything from my wife's SS account she said it depended on how much my government pension was. After I told her the amount she laughed and simply said no, you'll get nothing.

I guess the good news is that you have a really nice gummint pension!

 

[Telly]

The GPO formula knocks 2/3rd's of the governmental pension dollars off of the spousal benefit (IE., figure out spousal benefit first, THEN reduce it by the 2/3rd's of gov pension).
I look on the bright side... DW will get something from my SS account after I'm deceased
Because it will be a widow's benefit as the starting amount, that will then be reduced by 2/3rd's of her pension.

 

[Koolau]

The GPO formula knocks 2/3rd's of the governmental pension dollars off of the spousal benefit (IE., figure out spousal benefit first, THEN reduce it by the 2/3rd's of gov pension).
I look on the bright side... DW will get something from my SS account after I'm deceased
Because it will be a widow's benefit as the starting amount, that will then be reduced by 2/3rd's of her pension.

Yeah, I guess that's a bright side. I'll believe it if you will.------