The Republican Assault on Medicare Part B

[Lasher]

Generally and with exceptions, you are eligible for Medicare benefits if you or your spouse worked for at least 10 years in which you paid FICA taxes, are 65 or older and a citizen or permanent resident of the United States. If you are not one of the approximately 4% who is subject to the new Part B means testing that just went into effect, your monthly Part B premium this year is $93.50. Next year it will be $104.30. It was $45.50 in 2000. Even ignoring the impact of the means testing, that’s a total increase of 129.23% in basic Medicare Part B premiums during the current administration. During Clinton’s 8 years in office, Part B premiums increased just 43.08%. Higher inflation rates notwithstanding, Saint Gipper raised premiums 105.75%. During their 4 year terms Poppy and Carter raised them 28.23% and 33.33%, respectively.



Annual Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLAs) allow Social Security benefits to keep pace with inflation. However, because most beneficiaries' Part B premiums are deducted from their Social Security benefits, the annual increase in the check they receive will be less than the COLA. Even though the increase in the Part B premium may result in a lower check than expected, a provision in the law prohibits Social Security checks from dropping below the dollar amount of the previous year.

The 2007 COLA is 3.3%. If your monthly Social Security income is $1000, your COLA increase this year was $33.00, but with the $5.00 increase in the Part B premium you would have seen a $28.00 increase. If your check was $150.00 or below you couldn’t have been charged for the full $5.00 Part B increase because the COLA would have been less than that.

The Part B yearly deductible was raised in 1991 from $75 to $100. It remained unchanged until 2005 when it went up to $110. It was $124 last year and it’s $131 now. It will be $146 in 2008. That’s a total increase of 46% in the deductible for Junior’s 8 years. For Clinton it was 0%. For Poppy’s was 33.33%. Saint Gipper 25%. Carter 0%.

So where are we going with Medicare Part B? The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 made beneficiaries subject to means testing for the first time. While you might not have a lot of empathy for the wealthiest 4% of benefit recipients who are currently subject to it, this helps Republicans frame Medicare as welfare and not a quasi-universal healthcare program.

Perhaps even worse, this gives them a foot in the door to continue working on Medicare’s demise. The 2003 legislation provided for increasing of Part B premium thresholds to account for inflation, apparently to ensure that those to whom they applied would stay close to the current 4%.

But not surprisingly, Junior has just proposed that the thresholds should stay right where they are – a guarantee that eventually most people would be subject to the premium increases of the thresholds. Over time conservatives hope that Medicare would be diminished so much that they could drown it in a bathtub.

[bbgrunt]

1. great info. k and r

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2. Thank you, I dug around some on this one.

Glad you liked it.