Medicare B Premium dropping $5.20 next year!

[MickinMD ★]

Of course, Social Security rounds everything to the whole dollar in its checks, but the Medicare B Premium is dropping for the avg. recipient from $170.10 to $164.90.

Hopefully, there will be a similar change to those with Medicare Advantage.  I have to get Medicare B because my 75% employer-paid-thru-pension, near-Cadillac Medicare Supplemental requires it.

That's according to an ABC News article.  It also says the Social Security COLA is expected to be 9% to 10% but I think 10% is very unlikely and it's extremely likely to be close to 8.8% plus or minus 0.2% - still pretty good!

The Social Security COLA will be determined on October 13th, when the CPI-W Index for September is released.

The CPI-W annual inflation rate for July, August, and September is averaged to determine the Social Security COLA.

If it was just July and August, the COLA would be 8.89%.  September is expected to be relatively flat, maybe a 0.1% increase over August. because gasoline and some related prices are down but that would still put it about 8.5% over Sept. 2021.  That would make the COLA 8.76%

So I'm expecting the Social Security COLA to be around 8.8% plus or minus 2%.

[Prophet Zacharia]

3 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

That's according to an ABC News article.

I heard that this morning as well. They appropriated a lot of money to an Alzheimer’s drug treatment that then got a negotiated cost cut, so they are reducing the Medicare B cost as a result.

[MickinMD ★]

6 minutes ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

I heard that this morning as well. They appropriated a lot of money to an Alzheimer’s drug treatment that then got a negotiated cost cut, so they are reducing the Medicare B cost as a result.

I had read something a couple weeks ago that the 2023 increase would be low because there were some added, expected costs that never materialized that caused the 2022 Medicare B Premium to be up 14.5% last year.  I'm sure that Alzheimer's drug was part of that!

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, MickinMD said:

I had read something a couple weeks ago that the 2023 increase would be low because there were some added, expected costs that never materialized that caused the 2022 Medicare B Premium to be up 14.5% last year.  I'm sure that Alzheimer's drug was part of that!

I had read that but forgotten about it.