Hi Larry,

Social Security, IRS and Medicare combine on this one point. I have a high deductible health plan at work with a HSA. I am 63 and I plan to work until I'm 67. My wife is 64; she is a dependent on my health plan. We plan to file for her Social Security at her FRA of 66, and I will restrict my application to spousal benefit on my 66th birthday. I believe the rules state that Medicare Part A will start when my wife files. This also means that we are no longer eligible for a HSA, as I understand it. Have I got it right? I want to make sure that I have moved to the correct type of health plan at the correct time...

Thanks, Spencer

Dear Spencer,

It's not clear that your strategy is optimal. It will surely be better for your wife to wait to file until you are 66. And it may be better for her to wait till she is even older. Or it may be better for you to file at 66 so she can collect a spousal benefit off your work record. Please run our program to figure out what's optimal. The program will probably need to run 40,000 different scenarios to figure out which is best. You can't just guess at this.

I'm not a Medicare expert, but I believe that if your wife is in Part A, you can still participate in HSA on a tax deductible basis. In addition, even after you take Part A, you can still use your HSA, but the contributions are no longer tax deductible.

best, Larry