Baby boomers, the generation that once vowed to never trust anyone over 30, begin turning 65 this year. This is a historic moment, ushering a demographic tsunami through the threshold of old age.
Though this birthday no longer guarantees full retirement benefits, the big six-five still means one thing: Medicare eligibility. For the next 18 years, boomers will be enrolling in the government’s health insurance system, no doubt changing the way companies deal with a growing elderly population.
Consider this: Of the 78 million boomers born between 1946 and 1964, more than 2.77 million will turn 65 in 2011, according to U.S. Census projections. That’s 7,596 people aging into Medicare every day in 2011.
The number of newly Medicare-eligible seniors increases every year after that, peaking in 2025 when about 4.267 million people 鈥� or 11,691 a day 鈥� will celebrate that milestone birthday. In comparison, a decade ago, about 4,880 people a day graduated into Medicare.
Boomers will enter Medicare in numbers that will test the financial resources of a program signed into law in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson.
“There is going to be a debate in this country in the next few years about the level of services and the sustainability of the system,” says Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a nonprofit consumer information group. “Everyone knows that this huge demographic wave is going to have a profound effect.”
But as experts haggle over the big pi ture, it’s important for boomers to bone up on the details of Medicare, which tends to be more complicated than the usual insurance fare offered by an employer.
What’s more, signing up too late can cost thousands of dollars in extra premiums and out-of-pocket expenses over a lifetime.
“The biggest pitfall I’ve seen people run into is that they procrastinate,” says Jeff Johnson, interim state director for AARP of Florida. “They put it off and don’t realize they’re going to pay a penalty.”
Johnson and other advocates suggest boomers write this on their calendars in big red letters:
The enrollment period for first-time Medicare enrollees spans seven months 鈥� the three months before, the month of, and the three months after your 65th birthday. In this case, sooner is better.
If you sign up during the three months before your birthday, Medicare coverage will start at the beginning of the month you turn 65. Happy birthday!
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