Abstract

An Unsuspecting American With No Medicare Coverage—Me! Gordon Schiff Most Americans take it for granted that if they work hard their whole lives, Medicare will be there to cover their health care costs after they turn sixty-five. But that’s not always true. I have a patient who discovered too late that she wasn’t covered by Medicare and through her experience found out that I was in the same boat. The story begins with a patient I’ll call Ms. Williams, a retired telephone operator at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital, where I have practiced medicine since 1976. I had helped her in the past with her diabetes but had not taken care of her for several years until she visited me last May. She entered my exam room with one chief complaint. "It’s not about my health," she began, "it’s that I’ve lost my Medicare insurance." I questioned how this was possible, knowing that she had retired the previous December after turning sixty-five. "All citizens over sixty-five are covered by Medicare," I told her. Her response came as a surprise. Ms. Williams lamented that Cook County (like about a quarter of the nation’s counties, which I learned later) did not