John E

My wife turned 65 in June, and I turned 65 last month. For what it's worth, here is how we played the SS/Medicare game:

1. My wife started Medicare A, with D and G supplements, on 1 June.
2. I did the same on 1 Aug. (You are eligible on the first of your birthday month.)
3. My wife plans to start drawing spousal SS benefits when she turns 66 and her benefits max out. (Her father lived to 87, and her mother is 90 and still going strong, so taking reduced SS at 62 was not an attractive option in her case.)
4. I plan to start drawing SS benefits at age 70, when mine max out, because my family history and my lifestyle give me a very clean shot past 90.

Because both of us are strongly HMO-averse, we did not even consider a [dis]Advantage plan, and we thought Plan G offered a few benefits that made it more attractive than the B or F alternatives. My wife takes only one prescription drug, Synthroid, because she is a thyroid cancer survivor, and I do not currently take any medications, but we decided to go ahead with the cheapest (Walmart) Plan D to avoid potential lifelong future penalties.

Complication warning: because my wife is slightly older than I am, because she wanted to start Medicare before I qualified for it and well before either of us wanted to start drawing SS, and because she was relying on spousal SS benefits to qualify for Medicare, working with the SS office proved to be unexpectedly challenging, with several delays and some wrong/bad advice being given from agents who should have known their own rules. My advice is to start applying three months before your birth month if your situation will be at all unusual.