Ask Larry

okay Larry, I am just saying that even if you go in person to the SS office, you may still be given the wrong answer. I will be 65 shortly. I quit working one month before the first or my 5 children were born 39 years ago. My husband is considered self employed with under 20 employees and I and our children have/were on his insurance plan through his work. I spent this morning at our local SS admin and was told that since I did not have the needed 40 credits to apply for medicare (I have 33) and since my husband was still working (he is 63) that I was not eligible to receive medicare benefits without paying for them, and will have to go to social services to file a claim not to be penalized for not filing for them in the specified time frame. Later in the day I googled " Medicare, if your non working spouse is older" and found information that totally contradicts what I was told in person at the SS office. Tomorrow I will call SS and ask to speak to a technical expert, hopefully I will get someone who is educated and can help me untangle this mess that is consuming all my time. I will appreciate any more light you (or your team) can shed on this.

Hi,

I agree it's unfortunate that Social Security seems to have so many undertrained representatives these days.
In any case, you are correct that you can sign up for premium free Part A of Medicare based on your husband's Social Security insured status, provided that he has at least 40 quarters of coverage and is at least age 62. You'll still need to pay a premium if you want Part B of Medicare, though, but that's true of everyone.

If you have the same problem when you re-contact Social Security, you may want to direct them to section HI 00801.008 of their operations manual (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0600801008).

Best, Jerry