3,421 people live in 90704, and 800 are 65 or older
Avalon is the only incorporated city on Santa Catalina Island, about 22 miles off the mainland. In its ZIP code, 90704, 23.4 percent of people are 65 or older. The Los Angeles County figure is 15.2 percent. The median age, 40.9, sits above the county's 38.2. Just over half of households own their home: 706 of the 1,374 occupied homes, or 51.4 percent, against 45.9 percent countywide. Median household income is $105,139. Among everyone in 90704 aged 5 and up, 44.6 percent speak Spanish at home and 52.6 percent speak only English. Lara speaks Spanish, so she can explain each plan and take you through enrolling without switching to English. Anyone in the family can join the call, wherever they live. The population, housing and income numbers are from the American Community Survey's 2020 to 2024 release. The 800 is the survey's age groups from 65 up added together, not a percentage applied to the total.
One hospital in 90704, licensed for 8 beds
Catalina Island Medical Center, at 100 Falls Canyon Road in Avalon, has an emergency department and 8 licensed beds. That bed count is from California's hospital licensing records, as of September 2026. It is a critical access hospital, a federal designation for small rural hospitals. It can stabilize you, treat you and admit you for a short stay. Anything beyond that means a transfer to the mainland. There is no other hospital in 90704 and no Kaiser hospital on the island. The nearest general hospitals are in Long Beach and the South Bay. So before you pick a Medicare Advantage plan, find out which mainland hospital it covers. The answer turns on the medical groups the plan has contracts with, not just the insurance company's name. Those contracts are renegotiated from year to year, so a plan that includes your hospital now may drop it later. Before you sign up, send Lara a short list: your mainland doctors, the hospital you would want and your pharmacy. She looks for each name in every plan's current directory, and she runs the same search again every fall, once plans release their new details.
When you have to leave the island for care
If you ever need a mainland hospital fast, the ride may be an air ambulance. Medicare covers ambulance transport, air ambulance included, when traveling any other way would endanger your health. It covers the trip to the nearest facility that can treat you. Original Medicare and each Medicare Advantage plan handle the rest in their own way: your share of the cost, the paperwork and how you appeal a denied claim. Lara reads that part of every plan with you before you choose. If a transport claim is ever denied, she can call the plan with you. If your specialists are on the mainland, a plan that requires a referral adds one more step to every trip. Original Medicare, paired with a Medicare Supplement, has no network and no referral step. You can use any doctor or hospital in the country that takes Medicare. The Supplement has its own monthly premium, and you would usually add a separate Part D plan for prescriptions. So compare a full year of costs both ways, not one month. Lara works out those numbers with you, using your doctors and your drug list.
Medicare Advantage across Los Angeles County in 2027
About 57 percent of Los Angeles County's 1.7 million Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage or another Medicare health plan (CMS, May 2026). The county has 70 Medicare Advantage plans open to general enrollment in 2027, plus 54 Special Needs Plans, and 60 of the 70 charge a $0 monthly plan premium (CMS 2027 Landscape file). What varies far more is the out of pocket maximum, the most you pay in a year for covered care in network: our analysis of the same file puts the average at $2,232 and the median at $1,500, with a range from $199 to $9,850.
Lara is a licensed insurance agent. Insurance companies pay her when you enroll, so her help costs you nothing and your premium is the same with or without her.
How Lara is paidIndependent Medicare help in Avalon
Goulson Insurance Services Inc. is an independent insurance agency, and our agents work as licensed brokers for Avalon families. No single insurance company employs us or decides what we recommend, so the comparison starts with your doctors, your prescriptions and your budget. We put Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement and Part D plans from several carriers side by side, and you enroll only if one fits. The agency holds CA license 6020069, Lara Goulson holds CA license 0E69969, and we work in English, Spanish and Hebrew.
Beyond the Medicare review
Lara also handles life insurance, final expense policies and long term care coverage. Each of those gets its own conversation, separate from your Medicare plan review. Once you are enrolled, Lara is still the person to call. If a mainland doctor's office bills you by mistake, she will call the office with you and sort it out.
Call or text Lara from the island at (818) 472-5484.
You reach Lara directly · English, Español, עברית · Licensed in 12 states · 5.0 on Google · No cost to you
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