Medicare, explained once and properly

Not always. If you or your spouse are still working for an employer with 20 or more employees and you are covered by that group plan, you can usually delay Part B without penalty and pick it up later through a Special Enrolment Period. Smaller employers, COBRA and retiree cover are a different answer, and getting that answer wrong is expensive.

Medicare is federal health cover based on age or disability. Medicaid is a joint federal and state programme based on income and assets. You can have both — around one in five people with Medicare do — and a Dual Eligible Special Needs Plan is built for exactly that.

Some choices are annual and some are effectively one-off. You can change Advantage and Part D plans every autumn. Moving from an Advantage plan to a Medicare Supplement later can require medical underwriting, so the first decision deserves more thought than the ones after it.

Our help costs you nothing. We are paid by the carrier you choose, and your premium is the same whether you enrol with us or on your own.