Here’s how Medicare will impact Social Security benefits

Lower Medicare premiums mean even more Social Security benefits for seniors

Social Security is expected to announce today the biggest hike in benefits in roughly four decades, a direct reaction to the nation’s rising costs of food, housing and other goods. 

And seniors will be able to pocket more of that increase than usual due to a reduction in their Medicare premiums.

That’s unusual. Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment is usually in part gobbled up by a rise in monthly Medicare payments, since premiums are typically deducted from older adults’ Social Security checks. 

But starting next year, Medicare Part B premiums — which cover doctor visits, preventive care and outpatient services — will decrease to course correct for raising prices too high in 2022 amid uncertainty over a controversial new Alzheimer’s treatment. 

The Biden administration is already touting the dynamic as giving seniors “a chance to get ahead of inflation,” even though the increase in Social Security checks isn’t expected to be announced until today and the reduction in Medicare costs isn’t the result of Democratic policies. Meanwhile, the federal government’s monthly report on inflation is also set to come out this morning, the last one before the midterm elections. Democrats are on the defense, as Republicans hammer them over rising consumer prices. 

This year, an average of 66 million Americans per month will have received a Social Security check. The program is a major source of income for the elderly, but monthly payments also flow to people with disabilities, as well as the relatives of workers who have died. 

Experts widely predict this year’s cost-of-living adjustment, known as COLA, will be the largest in roughly four decades, our colleague Jeff Stein reports this morning. Some expect it’ll be around 8.7 percent, give or take, Nancy Altman, the co-director of left-leaning advocacy group Social Security Works, told The Health 202.

The projected increase for 2023 follows a 5.9 percent rise in benefit checks this year — which was also the largest boost to benefits in nearly four decades. 

Here’s the key difference: Medicare Part B premiums rose 14.5 percent this year, in large part because Medicare was factoring in uncertainty over whether — and how widely — the program would cover a pricey new Alzheimer’s drug. That meant a big chunk of seniors’ COLA increases went to pay for their Medicare premiums instead. 

But that won’t be the case for next year. Federal health officials wound up deciding to cover the Alzheimer’s treatment only in limited circumstances. So now they’re implementing a correction, of sorts, for raising premiums so high in 2022, and will reduce the monthly payments by 3 percent next year.

• “The increase in the COLA, coupled with lower Medicare premiums, will boost Social Security payments in 2023, and that should help retirees who are struggling to keep up with rising prices,” Tricia Neuman, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation and a Biden nominee for the Medicare Board of Trustees, wrote in an email. She added that reductions in Medicare “are not unprecedented,” but are a “rare occurrence.”

The increase could help seniors financially, but it also may put additional fiscal pressure on the program. The Social Security Trust Fund will be able to pay full benefits until 2035, according to an annual government report released in June, but trustees of the program are warning about the future of the huge entitlement. 

Meanwhile … there’s a debate around whether the right metric is being used to calculate the adjustments for inflation. Social Security benefits are adjusted off the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers. Some have argued instead it should be based on the consumer price index for the elderly to better account for seniors’ spending patterns. 

But conservatives have criticized the expected higher payments, arguing that Social Security ran a large deficit last year and could exhaust its funds in a little over a decade. Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, told Jeff that the way of calculating benefits should be changed because it’s too generous. 

Federal regulators sign off on updated boosters for children as young as 5

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that children as young as 5 receive updated coronavirus booster shots, hours after the Food and Drug Administration expanded eligibility to the age group, our colleague Laurie McGinley reports. 

The green light from federal regulators comes as the Biden administration scrambles to get more Americans boosted with a possible fall surge and the holiday season looming, following dismal uptake of the shots for older age groups. 

The revised shot developed by Pfizer-BioNTech had previously been cleared for those 12 and older, while Moderna’s booster was authorized only for those 18 and over. The FDA’s emergency use authorizations will expand access to Pfizer’s shot for children 5 to 11, and Moderna’s booster to those 6 and older. 

The details: Children who have received their initial two-dose series of any coronavirus vaccine are eligible to get the updated boosters as long as two months have passed since their last dose. The new Moderna doses are expected to be made available in pharmacies and doctor’s offices immediately, while the Pfizer-BioNTech shots are expected to be available next week. The old monovalent booster shots are no longer authorized for these age groups, the FDA said in a statement.

Looking ahead: FDA officials have said that authorization of a bivalent booster for children younger than 5 is still several months away.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky:

Most abortions remain legal in Indiana, likely until next year

The Indiana Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will hear a case challenging the state’s near total abortion ban, and issued an order blocking prosecutors from enforcing the law while it considers whether it violates the state constitution.

The court set a start date for oral arguments in the case for Jan. 12, meaning abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy will likely remain legal in the state through the end of the year. 

The details: The state Supreme Court took over the case after a county judge temporarily blocked the ban in September, prompting the state’s Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita to appeal the decision. Rokita petitioned the high court to take over jurisdiction of the case, bypassing the state appeals court. While the five Republican-appointed justices agreed to consider the lawsuit, they declined a request by Rokita to set aside an appellate court’s preliminary injunction on the law.

Key context: Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon wrote in the court’s opinion last month that the plaintiffs in the case had demonstrated a “reasonable likelihood” that the ban imposes a “significant restriction of personal autonomy” that violates the Indiana Constitution’s right to privacy and equal protections. 

Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health:

Meanwhile, in North Dakota …

The North Dakota Supreme Court ordered a lower court judge to reconsider his decision to block prosecutors from enforcing the state’s abortion ban pending the outcome of a clinic’s legal challenge against the law, the Associated Press reports. 

The high court instructed Judge Bruce Romanick to weigh the clinic’s chance of winning the case in reconsidering whether this decision to block the ban was correct. Red River Women’s Clinic, North Dakota’s only abortion provider, argues in its lawsuit that the state constitution grants abortion rights. 

U.S. reaches agreement with victims of doctor who abused Native American boys

The federal government reached a tentative deal with eight victims of pediatrician Stanley Patrick Weber, who was convicted of sexually abusing Native American boys under his care at federal hospitals in Montana and South Dakota, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

Under the terms of the deal, the government would pay between $1.5 and $2 million to each of the victims to settle claims that federal officials allegedly ignored warnings of his abuse. In total, the deal would amount to a roughly $14.5 million payout, people familiar with the matter told WSJ’s Christopher Weaver and Dan Frosch.

However, the agreement isn’t finalized. Because of the amount of money involved, the deal must be approved by a senior Justice Department official.

• Families USA, a left-leaning consumer health lobby, launched a new Center for Affordable Whole Person Care charged with drafting policies and calling for more transparency around the cost of care.
• A clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of an antiviral drug known as TPOXX in treating adults and children with monkeypox has begun in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the National Institutes of Health announced yesterday.
• A federal judge upheld Florida’s rule preventing Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care for patients of all ages, denying a request for a preliminary injunction sought by transgender people in the state, the 19th reports.
• More than a third of U.S. counties have no hospitals, birthing centers or providers offering obstetrics care, according to a new report from the nonprofit organization March of Dimes.

Federal watchdog probes whether covid aid enabled Florida’s migrant flight (By Tony Romm | The Washington Post)

How Democratic men are centering abortion access on the campaign trail (By Shefali Luthra | The 19th)

‘Separate and Unequal’: Critics Say Newsom’s Pricey Medicaid Reforms Leave Most Patients Behind (By Angela Hart | Kaiser Health News)

State delays Western Maryland Hospital Center privatization vote (By Jenna Portnoy l The Washington Post)

Thanks for reading! See y’all tomorrow.