The Palisades before January 2025
In the 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey, ZIP code 90272 had 21,390 people, and 5,331 of them were 65 or older. That is 24.9 percent, about one in four. The median age was 48.3. We got the 5,331 by adding up the survey's age brackets, not by applying a percentage to the total. Nearly four in five households owned the home they lived in: 6,674 of 8,357, or 79.9 percent. The median household income was $189,713. Among people 5 and older, 85.7 percent spoke only English at home. All of those numbers were gathered before January 2025. The fire broke out on January 7, 2025, and Cal Fire's incident record lists it as contained on January 31, with 23,448 acres burned and 6,845 structures destroyed. Many of the households in those counts are living elsewhere while they rebuild.
Down the hill to UCLA or Saint John's
The Palisades has no hospital, so any hospital care means a trip down the hill to Santa Monica or Westwood. Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, at 1250 16th Street, has 281 licensed beds, and Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood has 446. Providence Saint John's Health Center, at 2121 Santa Monica Blvd, has 266. Those are licensed bed counts from California's state records, as of September 2026. Two of those hospitals are UCLA's and one is Providence's, and the two systems contract with plans separately. A Medicare Advantage plan can include your doctor at UCLA and still leave Saint John's out. What decides it is the medical group a plan works through, not the company whose logo is on it, so two plans from one insurer can lead to different doctors. Lara starts by asking where your doctors practice: UCLA in Santa Monica, UCLA in Westwood, Saint John's or somewhere else. Then she goes plan by plan through the current directories, looking for each doctor, your hospital and your pharmacy. Contracts like these get renegotiated year to year, so she runs the search again every fall, after the plans' changes come out.
If your address changed after the fire
If you are renting or staying with family somewhere else in Los Angeles County, your plan has not changed. Medicare Advantage service areas are drawn county by county, so you are still inside yours, and your coverage works as it did at home. A permanent move to a county your plan does not serve is different. It counts as a qualifying event and opens a Special Enrollment Period. Tell your plan about the move and call Lara soon, because that window closes. If you expect to move again before you settle, look at a Medicare Supplement with a Part D plan beside it. A Supplement works with any doctor in the country who takes Medicare. If you stayed in 90272 or are rebuilding to come back, you may have two things to hold on to: the house, and your specialists at UCLA or Cedars. A Supplement's higher premium often buys a much smaller worst case than a $0 premium Medicare Advantage plan, and a Supplement has no network to recheck every fall. Whether that trade pays off depends on your own doctors and prescriptions, so Lara works out the yearly cost of each before you choose.
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 Pacific Palisades
Goulson Insurance Services Inc. is an independent insurance agency, and our agents work as licensed brokers for Pacific Palisades 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.
Before you enroll, and after
Lara sets Medicare Advantage plans beside Medicare Supplement and Part D options for Palisades households, in 90272 or living elsewhere for now. If a UCLA clinic or Saint John's sends you a bill that looks wrong, she calls the billing office with you to sort it out. When a claim comes back denied, she calls the plan with you and asks why. If you also want life insurance, long term care or final expense coverage, that is a separate conversation with Lara, not part of your Medicare review.
Back in 90272 or still away, call or text Lara at (818) 472-5484.
You reach Lara directly · English, Español, עברית · Licensed in 12 states · 5.0 on Google · No cost to you
Nearby Neighborhoods
We serve the whole San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles. These are the neighborhood pages closest to this one.