@smatthews51 I know that in PRC you can input when and by how much Social Security payouts may be reduced in the future, can you do the same with Medicare?
The Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund’s reserves are now expected to be depleted in 2036, five years later than was forecast in last year’s report, Treasury said. After that date, the program that provides healthcare to seniors and some people who are disabled would be able to pay only 89% of total scheduled benefits, based on annual tax collections.
Reserves for the combined Social Security trust funds are now projected to be depleted in 2035, one year later than reported last year. The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance Trust Fund would then be able to pay only 83% of scheduled pension and disability benefits on a combined basis.
The extension of the reserve depletion dates does not change long-term insolvency problems for the programs that together make up the largest share of federal government outlays, costing $2.2 trillion in fiscal 2023, or about 36% of the year’s total.
Have not heard a response so I thought I would throw down some statistics on SS COLA, Medicare premiums, and associated recent inflation numbers...
Items on which seniors spend the most money increased significantly over the past year: Hospital services rose 7.7%; transportation services soared 11.2%; shelter jumped 5.5%; and electricity climbed 5.1%, the government said.
Expected Medicare Part B premiums for 2025 are likely to eat up most, if not all, of COLA’s rise, Johnson said.
“Medicare’s Trustees estimate that the standard Part B premium for 2025 will increase at nearly double the rate of the COLA,” she said.
In the Medicare Trustee report released in May, the Trustees estimated Part B premiums would climb by $10.30 a month in 2025 to $185.00. That’s an increase of 5.9% from $174.70 in 2024. COLA doesn’t factor in Medicare Part B premium increases.
“Nevertheless, Part B premiums are one of the fastest growing costs in retirement, and those premiums are deducted directly from Social Security benefits,” Johnson said.
The Social Security Administration bases its COLA each year on average annual increases in CPI-W from July through September.
The index for urban wage earners largely reflects the broad index the Labor Department releases each month, although it differs slightly.
Older adults received a 3.2% bump in their Social Security checks at the beginning of the year to help recipients keep pace with inflation. That increased the average retiree benefit by $59 a month.
COLA is meant to help Social Security recipients avoid a lower standard of living, but it hasn’t worked in reality. Poverty has increased among Americans 65 and older, to 14.1% in 2022 from 10.7% in 2021. That increase was the largest jump among any age group, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data.
More info on future health care costs:
@pizzaman I'm sorry for the delayed response; I didn't see your question when I reviewed this initially. PRC2024 and Pralana Online both allow you to specify additional inflation for healthcare costs but there's no provision for specifically targeting Medicare. My best thought, at the moment anyway, regarding the modeling of reduced effectiveness of the Medicare program in covering your costs is to plug in higher inflation for out-of-pocket costs.
Stuart
