WASHINGTON – Medicare premiums for doctor visits will rise 17 percent next year, the Bush administration said Friday.
The $11.60-a-month increase is the largest in the program’s 40-year-history.
Monthly payments for Part B of the government health care program for older and disabled Americans – doctor visits and most other nonhospital expenses – will jump to $78.20 from $66.60.
The premiums are updated annually under a formula set by law. The federal government picks up about 75 percent of the cost of Part B benefits and beneficiaries pay the rest.
The increase reflects rapidly rising health costs and last year’s Medicare overhaul, said Dr. Mark McClellan, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
For example, the law blocked a planned 4.5 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians and replaced it with a 1.5 percent increase.
The administration, seeking political advantage among older voters, has tried to depict the Medicare law, with its first-ever prescription drug benefit, as a boon to seniors.
“The new premiums reflect an enhanced Medicare that is providing seniors and people with disabilities with strengthened access to physician services and new preventive benefits,” McClellan said.
But Democrats and other critics have derided the law as a giveaway to insurers, drug makers and medical providers.
Premiums have been increasing at an accelerating pace in recent years, rising 13.5 percent in 2004 and 8.7 percent last year.
In addition, the deductible for Part B services will rise $10 next year, to $110, another change mandated by the Medicare law.
About 93 percent of Medicare’s 41.8 million beneficiaries are enrolled in Part B, which helps pay for physician services, hospital outpatient care, durable medical equipment and other services, including some home health care.
The government also said the Part A portion of Medicare that pays for hospital stays, skilled nursing facilities and some home health care also will see an increase in the deductible, which will rise $36 to $912 next year. It is a Medicare recipient’s cost for up to 60 days of inpatient hospital care.
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