Medicare does not allow multiple people to be on one plan. If you’re in a household with others who qualify for Medicare, every person will have to enroll separately.
About Medicare Enrollment
The enrollment process reflects Medicare’s status as an individual plan. It’s based on what the individual qualifies for. If Medicare were to have a family plan, then there would have to be several exceptions to its own mandates. The Initial Enrollment Period is strictly age-based. If, for example, you are 65 and your spouse is 60, and you obtain a policy in which Part A is premium-free, then your spouse would have an unfair advantage over others who have had to wait until they were near their 65th birthday. Or, for another example, you are younger than your spouse, and your spouse pays a higher premium due to missing his or her Initial Enrollment Period. Is it fair for that penalty to extend to you? While a hypothetical scenario, this illustrates the potential issues Medicare would create if it weren’t an individual health plan.
How Another Person Can Influence Your Medicare Plan
While Medicare is an individual health plan, that is not to say your spouse cannot influence what options are available to you. In some cases, a couple may have family health insurance provided through one spouse’s employer health plan. The person who does not work for that employer is still subject to one of the biggest rules of Medicare – that being Medicare Advantage. Since one cannot hold a Medicare Advantage policy while on another health insurance policy at the same time, and joining Medicare Advantage would cause the other health coverage to be lost, then that could ultimately affect a person and his or her spouse.
Original Medicare (Parts A and B) may be worth joining despite already being covered by your spouse’s employer group health plan. This often poses no issue. However, it is still worth contacting your insurance provider just to make sure. In the case of Original Medicare, this can be a great move, which would allow for further reduction of out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
In short, Medicare is up to you to join. No one else joins it for you. Even though the coverage is yours, you can still be affected by those around you. In turn, your circumstances may affect their options for Medicare coverage, too.
KBI Solutions Can Help!
The next step to the best health insurance for you begins with us. Call us today at 254-918-5444. You will receive a free consultation with an experienced agent, who will work to get you the lowest price possible.
