Today, Medicare covers 9 million people under 65 with disabilities. Most people under 65 who qualify for Medicare must first become eligible to receive disability insurance benefits (SSDI) and then wait 24 months for Medicare coverage to begin. Given this pathway to Medicare, it may not be a surprise that younger beneficiaries with disabilities have poorer self-reported health status than seniors on Medicare, along with higher rates of cognitive impairments and functional limitations, and lower incomes, with half having income of $17,000 or less. And even with Medicare, beneficiaries under 65 with disabilities report greater difficulty accessing the care they need, sometimes because they cannot afford the cost. For some, this may be related to not having supplemental coverage, such as Medigap, to help with their out-of-pocket costs. In fact, a much smaller share of beneficiaries under 65 with disabilities than seniors have a Medigap policy (2% versus 17%, respectively), and a much higher share have no supplemental coverage whatsoever (21% versus 12%).
The substantially lower rate of Medigap coverage among under age 65 adults with disabilities may be due in large part to the provision in the federal law mentioned above that gives Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and older the right to purchase a Medigap policy during the first six months after they enroll in Medicare Part B and under other limited circumstances, but does not provide the same guarantee to younger people who are entitled to Medicare due to having a disability. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 31 states have gone beyond the federal minimum standard to require insurers in their states to provide at least one kind of Medigap policy to beneficiaries younger than age 65, but the other 19 states and DC have not (Figure 1).