I don't know why anybody, regardless of their age, would go anywhere without travel insurance.
I worked with a guy who used to routinely travel to Buffalo and Niagara Falls NY (2 hrs from his home) for a weekend of shopping. On one trip he got T-boned at an intersection by a drunk driver who ran a red light in the middle of the day. My friend wasn't too badly hurt due to getting hit on the passenger side, and having a fairly new car with lots of airbags, but he should have taken the paramedics advice and gone to the hospital to be checked. Since he didn't have any type of travel insurance he figured he wait until he got back into Canada to avoid the high cost of US medical attention or treatment. He ended up spending many hours of dealing with his car insurance company and trying arrange for a 1 way rental car that would allow him to drive it across the border. He was in a lot of pain by the time he got to the Niagara Falls Ontario hospital and was found to have a partially dislocated shoulder as well as a concussion and whiplash. He never even went across the border for lunch after that without taking out extra insurance.
My mom and dad used to always get a good travel insurance policy for their winters south in their motorhome. As they aged, and were diagnosed with more health problems, naturally the cost of the coverage increased, but dad knew it was worth it. On what ended up being their last trip, my mom, who was not taking her medications properly or at all, due to her dementia, ended up in a Florida emergency department with congestive heart failure. The insurance company decided it would be cheaper to fly mom home for treatment once she was stabilized, than to keep her in the FL hospital. Mom was flown home in a Lear jet with a nurse and doctor and arrived at the hospital near home within a few hours of the insurance company making that decision. The insurance company asked dad if there was anybody who could fly down to accompany him on the drive home in the motorhome or should they arrange to have it shipped and fly him home. Since they had a dog, dad told them my DH would come down to help with the drive home. At 81 years of age we didn't want dad driving all that way alone. Dad was told to keep all the receipts for gas and campgrounds for the drive home and submit them along with the cost of DH's plane ticket for re-imbursement. We saw a copy of the bill for mom's 3 day hospital stay and it was over $100K, so that and the cost of getting them all home, was well worth the nearly $2,000. premium for the travel insurance.
~Diane