My brother was born in 1956. He was working from home while getting treatment for lung cancer. His company just closed the local office and laid him off. He's two years short of his FRA, has no retirement fund and his company health plan will end in 30 days.
Should he just immediately take a diminished Social Security retirement? He'll lose close to $300/month and won't qualify for Medicare for over a year. If he qualifies for SSD it appears that he'd get his full retirement amount and Medicare. But with little savings, he might not survive the four to six month determination period.

Hi,

Your brother could file for both Social Security retirement and Social Security disability (SSDI) benefits simultaneously. Social Security could then start paying his reduced retirement benefits while his SSDI determination is pending. If your brother's SSDI claim ends up being approved, Social Security would then adjust his benefit rate to only assess a reduction for the months that he's paid retirement benefits prior to his first month of entitlement to SSDI benefits.

Medicare eligibility for people receiving SSDI does not begin until they've been on SSDI for 2 years. Therefore, since your brother is within 2 years of turning age 65 he probably won't qualify for Medicare any sooner than age 65 even if his SSDI claim is approved.

I should stress that I don't have enough information to know whether or not the filing strategy outlined above is the best option for your brother. His best strategy depends on his maximum life span, and whether or not he has a wife or children who may be able to draw benefits on his record at some point. Your brother may want to consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to explore and compare his options in order to determine the strategy that would most likely maximize his benefits.

Best, Jerry