Higher Medicare Premiums in Store For Some Retirees - Planning to Retire (usnews.com)

May 14, 2009 05:40 PM ET | Emily Brandon

The recession is taking its toll on Social Security and especially Medicare. This year’s annual checkup found that the Social Security trust fund is predicted to be exhausted until 2037, 4 years sooner than last year, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees report. Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund is expected to be emptied even sooner, in 2017.

Costs for Medicare Parts B and D, which cover doctors' bills and prescription drugs respectively, are predicted to increase an average of 6.4 annually over the long-term, according to the report. That means higher enrollee premiums and the need for more general revenue funding.

Most retirees won’t have to pay higher premiums in the near future because a current law doesn’t allow Medicare Part B premiums to be raised higher than Social Security increases for most retirees. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that there will be no cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries in 2010 through 2012, which also means no Medicare Part B premium hike for the majority of beneficiaries.

But about one quarter of Medicare Part B enrollees will be subject to unusually large premium increases in the next two years, according to the Trustees report.....

Higher Medicare Premiums in Store For Some Retirees - Planning to Retire (usnews.com)