Too sick to work, too soon for Medicare: the human cost of the 2-year Medicare waiting period for Americans with disabilities.

In the United States, nearly 7 million people under age 65 qualify for Medicare due to severe and permanent disabilities. However, these individuals must wait 2 years after they are deemed eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance to receive this coverage. As a result, there are as many as 1.5 million men and women who are too disabled to return to work but who must wait to receive Medicare coverage for their health care needs. Nearly 39% are uninsured for at least some of this time, and 26% have no insurance throughout the waiting period. This article tells the stories of three individuals struggling to survive the 24-month waiting period. These real-life stories expose the financial hardship, pain, and suffering caused by the waiting period and provide evidence of the need for the swift enactment of legislation to eliminate the waiting period. In this article, these individuals give their accounts of what it means to become too sick or disabled to work, and to learn that it is too soon to get health care coverage through Medicare. In all cases, we have tried to stay as close as possible to the language and the spirit of the participants' stories.