health insurance for 3 months in france/italy

Assuming your existing insurance ends at the border, see comparative searches for medical as well as additional insurance coverage at insuremytrip.com and squaremouth.com.
Have a fabulous holiday.

I used Squaremouth for a recent trip and it offers up a wide assortment of plans. Be advised that there are many different types of trip insurance, make sure you're getting what you think you're getting.

Be sure to check with your AARP supplement provider about what they will cover, and get it in writing. Medicare does nothing for you in Europe.

I go to Insure My Trip -- http://www.insuremytrip.com/, and usually call them and work with them online to get the best option for us. They send emails and you can click on links back and forth while you are talking to them on the phone.

Over the years we have discovered that the options narrow and the price gets higher the longer the trip is and the older we get. Be prepared for that possibility.

And I just gotta ask, you do mean 90 Schengen country days, right? Not 3 months?

Do check your Medicare Supplement. Some supplement plans will cover internationally, but if yours doesn't I think you have to wait until the open enrollment period usually in the Fall to change. There are about 5 or 6 different levels of supplemental policies.

Our medicare supplements cover us for 60 days; I would be surprised if any go 3 mos. When we were in similar situation we got a policy through Allianz which is what the old Access company is now called. We had friends who had a horrific situation -- father with heart attack in China during Tianaman Square when everything was clamped down and had wonderful service from their Access policy including flying my friend to China to assist her mother with the situation. We didn't have to use our insurance so can't speak to how it actually works but it covered evacuation as well as medical care. It is expensive to get insurance when you are medicare age and when we were younger we didn't get travel insurance (my health care policy covered us and even evacuation for me) but at our age it is critical to have insurance that will fly you home. We know someone who had to mortgage their house to bring their daughter home from Egypt after she was hit by a car -- she had no insurance.

I assume you probably know this but the Schengen visa allows only 90 days not 3 mos for American visitors. We watched someone miss their plane over this a couple of years ago when they were pulled aside with us for possible Schengen violation. (we were on day 89 but the Rome authorities had not stamped our passport so we had to prove our entry which I could do with airline tickets and hotel receipts) The other guy had exceeded the time and was still being held when we sprinted for the plane.

I am a Medi-Care and supplemental user.
Since I am taking 3 large international trips this year - I bought an annual policy with Travel Guard.
I was advised to buy the "business" plan (even though I will not be on business) - because it is slightly less
than the regular annual plan and has more coverage.
I hope I don't have to use this insurance - but glad I have it.

Make sure the cover includes medical repatriation and associated travel and hotel costs.
The medical costs of an infection that puts you in bed for a few days are one thing, but if that causes you to miss your flight back and someone to have to stay with you, the extra hotel and flight costs can exceed the medical costs.

Yes, and to repeat US citizens are limited to 90 day (not 3 months) in the Schengen Area.

I think 'repatriation' refers to getting your body home and evacuation to getting the living you home. Good policies provide that and also airfare for someone to assist. My friend was flown to China to assist her mother and father and eventually fly with her mother and her father's body back to California. She still raves about how great the insurance care was in a terrible terrible time.

Medical expenses are often quite manageable. We have a friend who had intensive treatment for retinal detachment in Paris which cost about 10% what the same procedures cost in the US. His US insurance (which covers him while abroad) still balked at paying and it took months of run around. It isn't so much the medical costs as the cost of getting back home that is nuts. I think my acquaintances had to pay about 50K to get their daughter home and this was over 10 years ago.

Medical repatriation covers the living. It covers the cases when you need assistance to get home, for example if you cannot sit in an airline seat and have to be 'repatriated' on a stretcher with medical assistance. That can be very expensive.

Here is how travel insurance sites define repatriation:

The term repatriation is not familiar to most travelers, so we’ve provided a definition here. Repatriation coverage means that the travel insurance company arranges for and handles the transportation necessary to return a covered person’s body to his or her home or to a nearby funeral or cremation facility.

Medical evacuation is the term they use for air transport home in whatever carrier is appropriate to the state of the person.

Let's hope none of us reading this will be using medical repatriation any time soon.

No repeat appearance by the OP to acknowledge the 2 warnings given him about the potentially disastrous 90-day issue.
Oh well, if he doesn't get the word, we tried.

Well this begs the question, what happens if you exceed this limit? Do they make you stay and live in Europe? "We don't care if you're leaving, you're not allowed to leave! You must stay until we tell you to leave"

Phred,
If you exceed the 90 day limit, you are an illegal immigrant. They can arrest you, fine you and imprison you before expelling you.
In practice, if you are spotted on the way out, you will probably get banned from ever returning.

We were told that if you overstay and are apprehended for it, you are banned from Schengen for 5 years. At our age that would be sort of catastrophic so we carefully follow the rules. I have no idea how it is enforced and how often -- but there has been a notable increase in computerized management of immigration since 911 and I know people who have traveled freely from the US to Canada for years without problem who suddenly cannot do so because of a criminal conviction in their college years decades ago.

The guy apprehended with us who could not prove he hadn't overstayed (because pretty obviously he had) at the least missed the plane; we have no idea what happened from there.

And back to Medicare supplement policies -- although it's easy to switch part D prescription insurance at annual open enrollment period it may be harder to change to a Medigap (A through M??) policy that includes MORE coverage. Insurers can ask for medical underwriting. Check with an insurance agent to see what your state's rules are and timing of open period.

On the Schengen Visa 90 day rule. Part was left off.

The Uniform Schengen Visa stands for a permit of one of the Schengen Area Member Countries to transit or reside in the desired territory for a certain period of time up to the maximum of 90 days every six month period starting from the date of entry.