Now that the official Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and Medicare Part B premiums have been announced for 2012, we can tote up the numbers to see how seniors will fare. All in all, the news is pretty good – a 3.6 percent COLA coupled with a much smaller-than-expected increase in the premium for Part [...] [...more]
Every year around this time, I remind seniors that it’s important to re-shop Medicare prescription drug and managed care programs during the enrollment season, when seniors can change their Medicare coverage. This year, it’s important to get started on that process earlier than usual—because the enrollment period is earlier this year. The 2010 health reform [...] [...more]
The nation’s biggest Medicare prescription drug plan is boosting premiums an average 14% next year. But the third-largest plan will cut premiums about 9%. And premium changes for the top 10 drug plans will be all over the map, according to an analysis by consulting and research firm Avalere Health. The widely divergent price moves [...] [...more]
Should affluent seniors pay more for Medicare than everyone else? How about Social Security? Should we cut benefits for wealthy Americans? Ideas for “means testing” these critical retirement programs are front and center as deficit reduction talks move back into high gear in Washington. Many Republicans are arguing that Social Security benefits should be cut [...] [...more]
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words,” wrote George Orwell in 1984. And so it is with a mangled word that is central to the 2012 presidential race and the work of the Congressional deficit-cutting Super Committee: entitlement. In the context of federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare, the word entitlement refers [...] [...more]
