Originally Posted by Nicholasstj

Thank you all for your great contributions. My parents are probably wealthy enough to be called independent (but only for a few weeks! - most of it will go into buying a house). We hope they will buy close to us (near the centre of DC) but will be open to MD (where we used to live) and Virginia. I am confused about the qualifications to join Medicare. The advice given by some staffer at Medicare was that they can qualify but they will have to pay. Are you saying that they cant join even if they pay? (We have a friend whose mother nominally worked at a supermarket for 5 years in order to enjoy Medicare, but that would not be practical/the right thing to do.) I will check again with Medicare who seem to employ people who have to look up the regulations....are not actually familiar with the regulations!!