There’s a lot of confusion about whether you are required to join Medicare when you turn 65. Unfortunately, depending on who you ask, the answer you get may be wrong.
Recently, my wife and I had lunch with some long-time friends. He’s retired and enrolled in Medicare. She will soon turn 65 but does not plan to retire for at least another two years. The health insurance coverage she has through her work is fine.
She told us that she had attended a retirement planning session offered at her workplace, where the presenter said you must enroll in Medicare at age 65. She wanted to know if that was true. I told her that if the presenter actually said that, then she received some bad information.
Then just last week, an acquaintance asked me that same question.
So the purpose of this article is to give you the real answer, which is: “It depends.”