If someone wants to spend their retirement years in the US but they were not born and raised here, what do they do for health insurance? They would not qualify for medicare since they didn’t pay 40 quarters worth of medicare taxes.
Would you still be able to get medicare if you pay the premium people who paid less than 30 quarters of taxes paid (which I think is about $505 a month for Part A)?
Would you still be eligible for ACA premium subsidies if you are medicare age but are an immigrant?
I would say it’s basically Medicaid if you’re poor or private insurance if you can afford it.
While you specifically ask about health insurance, most people just go to the ER with no insurance for treatment.
Late: Good question and definitely interested in how this actually works.
They’d have to buy it. This is America we’re talking about here. I am not sure about eligibility for the Marketplace subsidies for non-citizens - it likely depends on which state you’d be living. And yeah, I suspect if you did not contribute to Medicare, your eligibility will also be restricted. Bring money.
Everything I found says you would need to be a legal permanent resident for at least five years and that you can pay a higher Medicare premium if you have less than 40 quarters ( 10 years) of taxes paid but nothing specifies if you can get it without having paid in at all. So that person would have to wait at least five years, plus however long it takes to get a green card .
I haven’t looked closely, but my DIL claims that if my wife and I moved back then I would have to pay a monthly premium but would be eligible immediately. But we are citizens and I do have 34 quarters paid up, so YMMV.
My understanding, based on working on ACA insurance plans for some years, is that, depending on your immigration / non-citizen status, you may be able to buy a Marketplace plan, and also may qualify for the subsidies (which are provided as tax credits).
Not retired, but self-employed. I moved to the US at the age of 62. In the new year, I will qualify for my wife’s work-based health insurance. In the meantime, I’ve paid more than I’ve ever paid in my life for health insurance just to cover the period from when I moved here in September until sometime mid-January.
I won’t qualify for any Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid benefits until I’m eligible for citizenship in 5 years. Even then, because I haven’t paid in to it, I don’t think I qualify to get anything out of it.
And if my wife’s plan falls through, work changes, she retires, etc - no idea for certain, but I think the biggest option would be to move back to Canada.