House To Vote To Eliminate Medicare Premium Hikes

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(09-23) 15:15 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

House leaders have scheduled a vote Thursday on a bill that would eliminate premium increases for Medicare Part B next year.

Democratic leaders said older Americans shouldn't have to pay higher Medicare premiums because they are not expected to get a cost-of-living increase from Social Security.

With no Social Security COLA, the vast majority of Medicare recipients already are exempt from premium increases for Part B, which provides coverage for doctor's visits.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/23/national/w151514D46.DTL

[Bluenorthwest]

1. Are they speaking of very high income people?

Because the basic rule is this: the Part B premium can not increase more than the COLA, so if there is zero COLA, that means zero increase, automatically. So this article leaves out important details, either that or the bill is simply redundant. Any ideas?

[Lasher]

4. Yes.

This applies to high income people, those newly enrolled, and the few who do not have premiums automatically deducted from their Social Security checks. Better article here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4075432

[Hawkeye-X]

2. If the Senate won't do jackshit, then at least order a 10% increase on our COLA

for next two years. Both of them.

And friggin' remove the cap!

[Lugnut]

3. +1 n/t