Hi Larry, I am 65 and will reach my Full Retirement age of 66 in early May. My wife and I have saved approx. $1.7 M in our retirement acounts. I have made arrangements to stop my current full time employment at the end of this month. I plan to work per diem two days per week through my own S corporation to lower my income for two years until my wife reaches her Full Retirement age in order to reduce my salary so as to reduce my Medicare premiums after I retire. I will no longer have the Health Care insurance benefit of my current employer. Will I be able to use my wife's employer's Health Ins. coverage to prevent addititioal future increased premiums or should I begin receiving Medicare coverage, now?

Hi,

I'll first explain that there are several different parts of Medicare, and each has different enrollment rules. Part A (inpatient coverage) of Medicare is premium free for people who are insured for Social Security benefits, so no late enrollment penalty would be applicable to that coverage regardless of when you enroll. Parts B (outpatient coverage), & D (prescription drug coverage) of Medicare are optional, and there can be penalties for late enrollment in those plans.

I'm assuming that you've been covered under your own employer's group health plan from when you turned age 65 until now. As long as your wife is actively working for an employer with at least 20 employees and you're covered under her employer group health plan, then you should be able to wait until she retires to apply for Part B of Medicare without being subjected to a late-enrollment penalty. And, as long as her plan covers prescription drugs and the coverage is deemed as creditable (https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Prescription-Drug-Coverage/CreditableCovera...), you could also wait until your wife retires to sign up for Part D coverage without being subject to a late enrollment penalty.

You and your wife may want to consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully explore and compare your various options for claiming your Social Security benefits in order to determine the best strategy for maximizing your payments.

Best, Jerry