WASHINGTON – Medicare recipients whose premiums for doctor visits cannot rise more than the annual cost-of-living adjustments in their Social Security checks won’t enjoy that same protection when it comes to their medicine.
Democrats have found that the Republican-written prescription drug benefit, signed into law last year and scheduled to take effect in 2006, has no premium caps tied to Social Security COLAs.
“This is kind of a sneak attack on Social Security benefits,” Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., said Wednesday at a news conference.
The annual Social Security increase tied to inflation is designed to prevent the erosion of seniors’ purchasing power. The protection in the Part B premium is especially important for low-income seniors.
“Seniors are exposed to the possibility that large increase in medical costs, especially prescription drug costs, could eat up a large piece of their Social Security COLA and, for some, even reduce the size of their Social Security check,” Democrats on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee said in a new report.
As it stands now, most Social Security recipients keep most of their cost-of-living adjustments, committee Democrats said. Only those who receive the smallest monthly benefit find that their entire adjustment is used to pay higher Medicare premiums.
In 2004, for example, the $7.90 rise in monthly Medicare premiums for doctor visits and other nonhospital care consumed the entire COLA for the estimated 1.4 million people who receive no more than $384 a month from Social Security, the Democrats’ report said.
Social Security checks increased by 2.1 percent this year, an extra $19 a month for an average retiree. Medicare premiums rose by 13.5 percent.
Next year’s increase could be the largest ever, Medicare’s trustees reported in March. Monthly Part B premiums could rise 17 percent in 2005, from $66.60 to $78.10.
The Democrats said Medicare insurance premiums will take a growing share of COLAs so that by 2014, nearly two-thirds of Social Security recipients will spend at least 25 percent of their COLA on premium increases.
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