The talk in Washington is about getting the wealthy to pay “a little bit more” for Medicare as one way to help solve the budget issue. What the reports on this issue overlook is that higher income beneficiaries already pay considerably more for Part B Medicare and for Part D as well.
You need an income of at least $ 85,000 to pay higher amounts if you are single and $170,000 if married. This is admittedly a small group of over age 65 Americans. In fact, according to the SSA.gov website less than 5% of Medicare beneficiaries are affected. These individuals are not protected by the COLA rule so that even if the bulk of Americans have their premium frozen because there was no COLA adjustment for the Social Security benefit, these premiums increase. In addition, under reforms within the Affordable Care Act, the income levels subject to the higher premiums are not indexed to inflation to 2019.
So a word of caution, to really make a difference in the deficit, these extra payments may have to be imposed on a larger group of senior citizens. This tactic is just the latest attempt to further split Americans into one class or another.
Let’s say you are a married couple at the low-end of the income scale required for higher premiums today. You and your spouse will pay $230.80 plus an additional $92.20 for Part B plus your Part D premium and an additional $12.00. So your total premium for Medicare is currently $ 407.00 per month (assumes $30.00 for basic Part D coverage).
If you are among the few at the top end of the income scale for Medicare, your total premium in 2011 is $ 936.40 or nearly equivalent to the total premium for family group health insurance coverage for under age 65 Americans.
You can find the full story on income based premiums at ssa.gov
If you don’t think that the cost of Medicare is a problem for all of us, keep an eye on your Social Security monthly payment as more of it disappears into the Medicare premium.
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