Today is perhaps the best day of my life as an American.

[Scuba]

Today I became eligible for Medicare.

[Warpy]

1. I finally got it

but since I lost insurance in 1987, I honestly don't know what to do with it.

Well, except stop living in constant fear.

[malaise]

2. Happy Birthday Scuba

One of sisters got hers in July. We did laugh.

[Scuba]

6. Thanks malaise, but it's not my birthday. One becomes eligible on the first of the month ....

... during which they turn 65. So I don't have to wait a couple more weeks.

[malaise]

13. LOL

We'll start the celebrations

[Peacetrain]

18. Happy Happy almost birthday kiddo!!

That is great medicare assured.. I'll drink to that

[customerserviceguy]

25. Doesn't matter, I'll toast you anyway!

Dug out a nice bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir from my cellar, a friend over there owns a vineyard, and I buy a good deal of stuff from him.

Salute!

[hfojvt]

49. well that sure is handy for those of us

born on the 28th, or like my BiL on the 31st.

Not as cool for those born on the 4th.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Enjoy!

I have been very happy, having it.

Luckily, all my doctors are comfortable with it as well.

Congrats on living long enough!

[Cleita]

4. Been on it for eight years now.

I wish every one could have it or at least be able to buy into it with the exchanges, but I guess the public option was taken off the table if it even were ever seriously on the table.

Happy birthday!

[RebelOne]

32. Been on it for 9 years. n/t

[riverbendviewgal]

5. great ...I am sure you can feel good.

[brer cat]

7. Happy Birthday, Scuba!

[jimlup]

8. congrats scuba

Wish we had "Medicare for all" which might begin to be the step we need to take towards a solution that most of the rest of modern the world has long since figured out.

[Scuba]

9. +1,000

[ananda]

10. I join that club in October.

I got my card a month or so and now I'm just waiting
for the Advantage Plan to kick in with it.

My monthly premium is down $100 so I really can't
complain, especially with rising rents.

[Billy Love]

11. Happy birthday, Scuba.

Now you just have to wait till next year to get your Social Security, grandpa!

[riversedge]

12. Good for you.

[Curmudgeoness]

14. I have exactly five years from today to wait.

Well, that is unless they fuck around with it and change the goalpost on me.

I see it as a freedom that I have never had in my life. Right now, I would stop working----or at least stop working where I work, except for the health insurance issue. I could probably retire soon, but I cannot afford health insurance premiums until I get to Medicare eligibility. This is going to be a long five years.

[barbtries]

16. happy birthday curmudgeoness!

[Curmudgeoness]

19. Thanks, barbtries.

but it is a few weeks before my birthday. For Medicare purposes, you start to get the benefit on the first day of the month in which you turn 65. My birthday month is September, so the 1st of September is when I will have coverage. This is good to know when you are counting the days.

[busterbrown]

52. Those five years really suck. What state are you in?

I took SS early to help with situation.Work Income stop for me at 63 so for two years I paid with a huge deductible for $400 a month.. Never used it thank God.. On the other hand my girl friend of 24 years had a knee operation costing us $7000. Higher deductibles are a gamble, but between the both of us we would have been paying $1700 a month.. Separate policies! Just Horrible..

Today however, for her she has found a program called Healthy Way L.A. ( Medicaid Money) which is absolutely free. Based on income only $19,000 threshold, (she has S.S. only) she can use any County facility for no cost.
Will save close to $20 grand in those 3 years.

Perhaps your state has such a program as well....They are popping up all over.. I think the money might be coming from Obamacare....

[Curmudgeoness]

54. Yep, counting days in a five year period sucks.

I am in PA, and they are not the best state for health care. In fact, PA is fighting Obamacare tooth and nail. You are lucky to have found help. I would not have $20,000 to spare to have health insurance, which is why I will have to wait until I qualify for Medicare. And I think that there is a savings issue with getting help in PA. My savings, as meager as it is, is all I have for retirement along with SS. If I were to spend it down in that time from 62 to 65 just to have health insurance, I would not have hopes of retiring at 65. Or 66 to get full SS.

But I will start to look into all the options in two years when I could choose to take early SS. I also have considered planning to retire at 63-1/2, when I can use COBRA for the full 18 months until I qualify for Medicare. (See, I have been thinking this over.)

[busterbrown]

65. Cobra is still expensive?

Great thing about Healthy Way L.A. is that savings and investments are not an issue.. Only income...
$19,000.. single......Fuck that Gov...The pain he is causing both physical and mental..

[Curmudgeoness]

70. Well, my COBRA would not be out of reach---my boss is cheap.

I pay the bills, so I know what individual coverage costs. It is about $350 a month for my company. Not something to sneeze about, but not impossible if I have it planned out. The coverage sucks, but it would keep me from losing the house if something were to happen.....$5000 deductible and that doesn't include all the co-pays you would have if something happened.

Yes, Governor Corbett is really fucked up. For the life of me, I cannot understand how he won....but PA is a weird state. You never know how it will go.

[DebJ]

53. Hubby has 18 months to go....worse part is he CAN'T work full-time, wish he could

because our $1525 a month insurance premium takes almost all of his social security,
which is reduced by hundreds a month because he had to retire early due to kidney
disease. Can't get disability until on dialysis, apparently, but he can't work except
day jobs here and there, because he was losing too much weight and having other
health issues that, thankfully, eased tremendously when he took early retirement.

He has a small pension but after the mortgage and other bills (which would have
been paid in full before a 'regular' retirement date) there is not only nothing left,
we are rapidly approaching the point where keeping the house is becoming
questionable.......... just trying to hang in for another 547 days and keep praying
he can keep working small jobs, that those day jobs will keep being available...
We would have been perfectly fine if only he could have worked just two more years...
all debts but mortgage paid........now, we face disaster. Like millions of others.

I can't work either because of other health issues....not that there are any jobs here
anyway to speak of.

[Curmudgeoness]

57. Yours is such a common story

that it breaks my heart. I still cannot fathom that we allow people to slip from a comfortable middle class into poverty without blinking an eye....and then the victims of recession or illness are blamed for being lazy or not planning or any of the other cliques we hear all the time. It is a hard life when you were not born into money.

One of your comments really hit me---that other health issues eased when to took the early retirement. What a shame that not having money to pay all the bills and having to dig into all your reserves, and still you may not be able to keep your house, isn't as much a stress as working was. That says it all about the state of labor today, doesn't it?

[Enthusiast]

58. I hope they leave the goalposts where they are.

It should be for all ages and universal.

[Curmudgeoness]

59. No shit!

I have never waivered on "Medicare for All". But I guess that is a pipe dream that us liberals had. When I think of the freedom that this one thing could give to so many people, I want to cry. Companies could no longer hold that "health care coverage" over your head as a reason that you cannot quit your job and find one with less stress or fewer assholes.

They already moved the goalposts on me for Social Security. I am not confident that they will not pull the same stunt again.

[barbtries]

15. happy birthday Scuba!

how old do you have to be these days? my ex is 62 today.

[Scuba]

17. 65 ...

Thanks barbtries!!

[Raven]

20. Good for you! Welcome to the club! Medicare is

the most efficient, well run, consumer friendly system I've ever been involved with.

[Half-Century Man]

35. Medicare is okay I guess

I still think the Military Health Care is better, You get full medical, vision, dental, end of story.

[dem in texas]

66. Military health care is only until you are eligible for Medicare.

My husband is retired military. He had Champus until he reached age 65. Then he had to go to Medicare with Tricare supplement. It has worked well for him. I never used the Champus because my employer paid for my insurance. But now that I am retired and on Medicare. I also have the Tricare supplement.

[Half-Century Man]

72. I see the ACA as just a step to Universal Health Care.

If all the money spent on health care was, instead, a tax to fund a governmental service.
If we traded expensive corporate bureaucrats for more cost effective governmental bureaucrats.
If we no longer spent 20% of costs on administration, but rather 11% (through the use of working supervision ie, medical workers who spent part of their daily routines doing admin work).
If we as the single legal customer in the United States for big Pharma.
If we consolidated all computerized medical information to the same operating system.
And did this for Medical, Psychological, Dental, and Vision.

We would save a tremendous amount of money, improve health care to best in the world, provide stable well paying careers for maybe a million people, profoundly reduce personal stresses and the sociological results of stress overloading (ie, school/work place shootings), and nearly emanate medical quackery.

[Demeter]

21. 6.5 years to go, for me

Meanwhile, I'm paying over $300/month for the "bronze" plan. If you die, they cast your body in bronze....

[ctsnowman]

37. LOL

[totodeinhere]

22. The best day of my life so far was the day that my son was born. n/t

[randome]

46. Cheers!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[skydive forever]

23. Remember

You still have to sign up for it. It doesn't get automatically started. But congrats anyways.

[mysuzuki2]

24. Congrats dude! You're a month ahead of me.

[Loudly]

26. And may Medicare for All be ours soon.

[liberal N proud]

27. Get it while you can

[angstlessk]

28. FINALLY you can discover all the diseases from which you suffer

I am looking forward to that day myself..a few more years..if I make it...or maybe Obamacare will intervene...I will see?

[gopiscrap]

29. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

[ashling]

30. I'll get mine

4 years from tomorrow

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

31. Congratulations !!!! It's criminal you had to wait this long.

If the USA didn't spend so much money spreading freedom in the world everyone would be better off. A life not in servitude should be a right ....stuff this "privilege "stuff the 1% keep on ramming down people's throats. 888. 8 HOURS WORK,8 HOURS REST, 8HOURS RECREATION. Sounds pretty nifty,it could catch on!!!!

[fadedrose]

33. Happy Birthday Scuba

And do you have suplemental insurance?

It covers the bare spots.

Get your reading glasses out, you're gonna need 'em...

By coincidence, I gave you your 65th Rec....

[Dustlawyer]

34. Congrats! I am fully AARP ELIGABLE in 12 days!

[Scuba]

36. If you like travel discount coupons you're going to be thrilled!

[Dustlawyer]

51. Travel all of the time for work, can't wait! Lol

[valerief]

38. Now you start the struggle to keep it. nt

[Scuba]

40. The struggle to expand it to all Americans, including dental, vision and hearing aids continues.

[valerief]

44. Right. It's a shared struggle. But the .001% giveth and the .001% taketh away, too.

I'm hoping it's still there for me in a few short years. I don't trust the .001% and the 'Merkkkan faith-and-bootstraps masses.

[Le Taz Hot]

39. Congratulations!

Seven more years here.

[Stinky The Clown]

41. Congrats and Happy Birthday!

It is wonderful. It was like a massive pay raise for us when I got mine. Sparkly is still a few years behind.

[Bette Noir]

42. Happy belated birthday.

[Scuba]

45. My birthday's still a couple weeks away, but thank you. One becomes eligible on the first ....

... day of the month in which they turn 65, so I don't have to wait!

[lillypaddle]

43. Congrats!

I've been on Medicare since last December, and so far, so good. Feels pretty good, doesn't it?

[Ichingcarpenter]

47. Happy early B day

and your well deserved Medicare.

[handmade34]

48. Congratulations!!

[RiffRandell]

50. I'm so happy for you Scuba!

[kestrel91316]

55. I am 56. I expect Medicare to be gone by the time I am

old enough by today's criteria to receive it.

Hell, Social Security will probably be gone by then, too. And I've been paying into it since 1972.

[BlueMTexpat]

56. Congratulations to you, Scuba!

Medicare (and Social Security) are wonderful government programs that work. That is why the RW hates them.

For those interested in determining their own eligibility or for more information about it ... http://www.medicare.gov/MedicareEligibility/home.asp?dest=NAV%7CHome%7CResources%7CEligibilityCalcQuestions%7CResourcesOverview&version=default&browser=Chrome%7C29%7CWindows+Vista&language=English

[rhett o rick]

60. Congrats. nm

[roguevalley]

61. congats, scuba. I am so happy for you.

[mountain grammy]

62. Birthday or not, Happy Medicare Day!

[Scuba]

63. Eggzaklee!

[Liberal_in_LA]

64. happy bday

[secondwind]

67. hooray! I've been on it for 2 years now, and it's the best!

[KansDem]

68. Congratulations, Scuba!

I'll be there in 4 1/2 years so until then, I toast your good fortune!

[Granny M]

69. Happy Birthday to you!

Best wishes for many more good years! Hope you don't have to use the Medicare for anything but routine preventative care

Oops... just read your post further down. I should have said, happy almost birthday.....

[drynberg]

71. Me too, this July

I love it and am using it at my Dr.'s and a specialist she referred me to. Just in time after many years of paying in to the federal insurance program. It was a great day this July!