In the spring of 1966, roughly seven hundred federal workers fanned out across the country to inspect two thousand hospitals in three months. They were not checking the medicine. They were checking whether Black patients were admitted, because no hospital that discriminated could take Medicare money
On July 30, 1965, Lyndon Johnson did not sign Medicare in Washington. He flew to Independence, Missouri, walked into the Truman Library, and signed it in front of the man who had lost this fight twenty years earlier. Then he handed Harry Truman the first Medicare card ever issued. Bess got the secon
By 1965 there were three rival health bills in Congress, and two of them existed to make sure Medicare never happened. The chairman who had strangled the idea for a decade looked at all three, said maybe we should put them together, and told a staffer to have it drafted by morning. That is why your
In 1961, the campaign to stop Medicare did not run on television. It arrived in the mail as a vinyl record, addressed to doctors' wives, with instructions to invite the neighbors over for coffee and play it. The man speaking on that record later became president. Twenty-seven years later he signed t
In 1912, a former president put health insurance for the old and the sick on a national ballot. It did not become law until 1965. In between sits one of the longest arguments in American history, and a single phrase that kept winning it. Harry Truman saw the phrase coming and tried to disarm it in a
I am writing this from seat 27B. My daughter is next to me. My wife and my baby boy are somewhere else on this airplane, separated from each other, and I found out about all of it at the door. What happened next is the best explanation of cost versus value I have ever lived through.
“My full trust is in you folks and always has been since the beginning.”
— Dana B., ARA client since 2019
“Best decision we made years ago in AZ was finding American Retirement Advisors!”
— Ellen K., Scottsdale
“I told my friends I was in the same position and talked to American Retirement Advisors and got my questions answered.”
— Rod H., ARA client
“I was talking to a family friend yesterday and told him what a wonderful job Marc did.”
— Susan S., Mesa
“He comes highly recommended by close friends. I only want to talk to David Edge.”
— Gene M., referred client
“This is my first year in Medicare and your input was extremely helpful.”
— Randy B., new client
We start by learning what you want to accomplish and what you have to work with. We can't help if we don't know the full picture.
We keep the best of what you already have, replace what can be better, and make sure nothing is falling through the cracks.
As life changes, so should your plan. We lock in an annual review to make sure everything is still working for you.
Betty gets to say it herself. On Friday, October 2, Eddie and Betty are coming to the big screen for one day only, two showings, at two Valley libraries, alongside the advisors you have been reading all summer. Here is everything, including how to save your seat at no cost to you.
You retire in the spring. Your income drops by two thirds. And the following January, Medicare bills you as though you are still earning what you earned two years ago. There is a form that fixes this, most people have never heard of it, and it is the last of our seven doors.
There is exactly one window in your life when an insurance company cannot say no to you on a Medicare supplement. It is six months long, it happens once, and Medicare says plainly that it does not repeat. Almost nobody understands what they are giving up when it closes.
Medicare is an individual program. There is no family plan and no spouse rider. So when the older half of a couple ages into it, the younger half can quietly lose coverage, and the moment that happens determines whether she has good options or almost none.
You would not skip your annual physical, and you should not skip your money's either. To close out our week on financial interactions, here is what actually happens in a real annual review, piece by piece, and the moment from one of ours that I would put up against any product pitch in the country.
One of our clients sees more doctors than anyone I know, and every one of them is careful, thorough, and completely unaware of what the others are doing. His money worked the same way for thirty years. Here is what happens when nobody is the general practitioner, and what it looks like when somebody
Plenty of retirees are carrying a death benefit they forgot about, tucked inside an annuity, an old policy, or a benefit from a job they left years ago. Before you buy new life insurance, take an inventory. The smartest sentence I've heard in a review meeting this year explains why.
You would never take a new medication without checking what it does alongside the ones you already take. But most people buy annuities, life insurance, even funeral policies without asking the same question. One client's story shows why the question matters more than the product.
The last card on the fridge is the easiest one to misread. You do not prepare for a first meeting with an advisor; the meeting is where preparing happens. Day five of The Fridge List closes the series: why walking in with a shoebox and three questions beats staying home with a perfect plan you never
The documents exist. The accounts exist. The passwords exist. Almost none of it lives in one place, and most of it lives in your memory. Day four of The Fridge List is one job: gather it all where your family can actually find it, and why a single labeled box beats a lifetime of good filing.
The documents are signed. Nobody has told the kids what is in them. Day three of The Fridge List is the executor conversation: who to call, what to say, and why the kids are relieved by that call, not burdened by it.
The appointment is on the calendar, and the dread changes shape. What happens in that room? Day two of The Fridge List walks you into the first trust meeting: a conversation, not an exam, fewer decisions than you fear, and a cost you learn up front. And almost everyone says the same thing on the way
