Clarifying Medicare Eligibility Rules

Question: I am 65 years old but as yet have not signed up to receive Medicare benefits. My husband is 5 years younger. Am I still eligible to receive Medicare benefits? It may sound silly, but I have hesitated going into the Social Security office because I don’t know what to expect. I also do not receive Social Security checks. May I receive Medicare even if I don’t receive Social Security checks? Also, what do I have to bring with me should I get up the nerve to go into the Social Security office?--C.L.A.

Answer: Any governmental office, Social Security not excepted, can be a formidable place, but you shouldn’t really regard it as a cave of horrors. Your best bet is to call first and set up an appointment.

Unfortunately, as Roy Aragon, a public affairs specialist here with Social Security points out, we’re missing one key piece of information: Are we talking about Social Security and/or Medicare benefits for which you are eligible on the basis of your own work experience, or as the spouse of a younger husband? It makes a whale of a difference.

If we’re talking about your own work experience, of course, it’s a piece of cake. You can draw your own Social Security checks, or not, but you can certainly capitalize on the Medicare benefits due you regardless of your husband’s status.

Most employers providing health and accident coverage, in fact, insist that workers hitting 65 apply for Social Security--even if they have no intention of drawing the benefits--simply for the Medicare coverage.

The Plot Thickens

If we’re talking about benefits based on your husband’s contribution, it gets a little stickier. And I suspect this may be the case here, because an employer would probably have called your attention to the procedure. When your husband turns 62, even if he continues working, Aragon said, you can apply for your normal Medicare entitlements because you’re already over 65 (although he can’t). For Medicare, he’ll have to wait until he too is 65.

All you have to do is present Social Security with proof that he has, indeed, reached 62 and that you are over 65. If, at the age of 62, he elects to take early retirement benefits, you can both receive reduced Social Security checks, of course. In summary, then, neither of you can do anything until he has turned 62 unless you have your own work experience to draw on.

The minute he turns 62, go to your nearest Social Security office armed with both of your birth certificates (the original or a certified copy) and your Social Security cards. Then, or later--or whenever--if you plan to begin drawing your Social Security monthly benefits too, you’ll have to augment your files with the agency with a copy of your W-2 tax forms for the past two years.

Q: I recently decided to get a digital bathroom scale, figuring that it would be easier to read than the traditional revolving gauge. The first one I brought home would give me three different weights, one right after another. I returned it and bought a more expensive one and experienced the same thing. Now I’m on my third one and I’m having the same problem. Is this a characteristic common to digital scales?--L.D.

A: Assuming that you’re not going on and off some sort of crash diet, there shouldn’t be any logical reason for this sort of variance, according to Tom Dale, customer service manager for Detecto Scales of Webb City, Mo.

In the scale business, incidentally, this fluctuating reading you’re getting is known as a weakness in “repeatability,” and it’s every bit as important as accuracy itself. Unlike government agencies that check scales used to weigh market produce, there is really no agency bothering its head about the accuracy of bathroom scales.

Uses Standard Weights

Detecto, however, a subsidiary of Cardinal Scales for the past eight years, does use the standard weights prescribed by the National Bureau of Standards in testing its physicians’ digital scales (which cost about $250).

“And using a 350-pound test weight,” Dale said, “there won’t be a variance of more than four to six ounces.”

Without being snobbish about it, Dale suggested that price can, indeed, be a factor in the accuracy of digital bathroom scales.

“A digital scale is basically a mechanical scale but with a ‘strain gauge’ in it.” And this, he explained, is an electronic load-sensing element that, if you’ll pardon the expression, translates your “load” into digital numbers. It would be the logical, if unfortunate, place to cut corners in turning out a $15 scale.

Are you being careful about the surface the scale is resting on? A carpet, and particularly one with a thick nap, can play havoc with a scale’s repeatability. Other than that, the only thing Dale can suggest is that you get yourself weighed on a good-quality commercial scale before you go shopping and use that as the standard for the ones you are scouting.

“He should get on and off the scales eight or 10 times to test its repeatability. A lot of scales will bobble for a few seconds--giving one or two pounds of differing weights--but most of them then ‘lock into’ the true weight.”

Are you sure that the family cat isn’t playing a little joke on you behind your back?

Campbell cannot answer mail personally but will respond in this column to consumer questions of general interest. Write to Consumer VIEWS, You section, The Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.