Monday Medicare Series Part 2: Who Can Get Medicare?

Print this entryWritten by Alex M. Hendler, Founder, Ontolawgy, LLC This is the second part of a 4-part series about Medicare. This part describes who can get Medicare coverage. There are links throughout these posts to some of the laws and policies that dictate how Medicare works. You don’t have to follow those links to understand what’s going on, but they may help you to understand why it can be difficult to get a straight answer about what Medicare does and doesn’t do, and how much it could cost you. Who can get Medicare? According to an official fact sheet provided by Medicare (PDF) Medicare is for: people age 65 or older, under age 65 with certain disabilities, and any age with permanent kidney failure (called “End-Stage Renal Disease”). You must have entered the United States lawfully and have lived here for 5 years to be eligible for Medicare. Those requirements and generally pulled from ...