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A health care directive is from the "patient" to the doctor, explaining what the "patient's" wishes are in terms of end-of-life care or catastrophic medical events.
Whether or not you need a POA really depends on what sort of relationship you have with your cousin; for example, are you their closest relative? Are you the person your cousin wants to speak for him/her in the event they can't advocate for themselves? Is there a chance you are going to wind up being your cousin's primary caregiver at some point? If the answer to any of these is "yes", then it would serve you well in the future to have POA. Without it, you might encounter difficulties in getting your cousin care, placement, etc.
However, if you don't envision having to be an advocate/caregiver/etc. for cousin, and you're only talking about the disposition of your cousin's assets after death, then no, a POA is not necessary to inherit.
If you and cousin are unsure as to the necessity of a POA, your best bet would be to contact the lawyer who drew up the will and speak with them as to the necessity of it. If your cousin's will was drawn up by a lawyer, I'm actually a little surprised a POA wasn't done at the same time; my husband and I had our wills, POA's and living wills/health care proxies all drawn up together by the lawyer, at his suggestion. Are you sure your cousin hasn't assigned POA to someone other than you?
Suppose your cousin becomes incompetent and you need to do placement. That can be done legally most easily with POA. Get this done by an attorney, not by pulling documents off computer that you have notarized. A notary attests only to a signature, not to competency to create a good POA document.