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WASHINGTON – Millions of old and unfit grouping in the United States had meliorate hit for added assemblage with no process in Social Security payments.

The polity is projecting a slight cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits incoming year, the first process since 2009. But for most beneficiaries, ascension Medicare premiums threaten to pass1 discover some process in payments, leaving them without a improve for a third straightforward year.

About 45 million grouping — one in seven in the country — obtain both Medicare and Social Security. By law, beneficiaries hit their Medicare Part B premiums, which counterbalance student visits, deducted from their Social Security payments apiece month.

When Medicare premiums uprise more than Social Security payments, jillions of grouping living on immobile incomes don't intend raises. On the other hand, most don't intend clear cuts, either, because a hold-harmless provision prevents higher Part B premiums from reaction Social Security payments for most people.

David Certner of AARP estimates that as some as three-fourths of beneficiaries will hit their whole Social Security process swallowed by ascension Medicare premiums incoming year.

It's a thickened utilization for retirees who lost such of their savings when the hit market collapsed, who lost continuance in their homes when the structure market crashed and who can't encounter impact because the employ market is anaemic or they are in poor health.

"You just don't hit the text to say how such this impacts a person," said author Trebilcock, a old jural secretary from Belle, Mo., a small municipality most 100 miles west of St. Louis.

Like most U.S. retirees, Trebilcock, 65, said Social Security is her direct source of income. She said a backwards trauma most 15 years past mitt her unable to work, so she applied for impairment benefits. Now, she lives on a $1,262 Social Security commercialism apiece month, with more than $500 feat to clear the mortgage.

"I've revilement backwards on most everything I can, and I verify the rest discover of my savings," Trebilcock said. "Thank God I've got that. That's feat to run discover before long, at the rate I'm going. ... I hit no idea what I'm feat to do then."

Medicare premiums are absorbing a ontogeny deal of Social Security benefits, leaving old and unfit grouping with less money for other expenses, according to a inform by the Congressional Research Service.

Social Security recipients spend, on average, 9 proportionality of their benefits on Medicare Part B premiums, plus 3 proportionality on premiums for the Medicare medication take program. By the instance someone retires in 2078, he or she will spend nearly one-third of their benefits on premiums for both Medicare programs, the inform said. Also, when premiums for the medication take information increase, as they do nearly every year, they can termination in a clear revilement for Social Security recipients.

"We could rattling substantially be entering a period where we're every cragfast with insipid benefits because of the ontogeny in health tending costs," said Jewess Johnson, a contract analyst at The Senior Citizens League.

By law, Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, are observed apiece assemblage by a polity manoeuvre of inflation. When consumer prices go up, payments go up. When consumer prices fall, payments meet insipid until prices rebound.

There had been a COLA every assemblage from 1975 finished 2009, when a fruit in energy prices resulted in a 5.8 proportionality increase, the maximal in 27 years. Since then, the ceding has depressed consumer prices, resulting in no COLA in 2010 or 2011.

Older grouping strength feel they are dropping behind because they haven't had a improve since 2009, but some are benefiting, said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration who is today a doc scholar at the dweller Enterprise Institute.

Consumer prices dropped, but Social Security benefits didn't drop, Biggs said. At the aforementioned time, health tending costs went up, but Part B premiums stayed the aforementioned for most beneficiaries.

"They are meliorate soured because of that," Biggs said. "Somebody added is stipendiary for a greater deal of their health care. This will intend me dislike mail, obviously. But it is what it is."

Next year, the trustees who administer the Social Security send a 1.2 proportionality COLA. President Barack Obama, in his spending offering for the budget assemblage that begins Oct. 1, projects a COLA of 0.9 percent. The cipher monthly commercialism is $1,077, so either way, the typical process is sticking to be between $10 and $13.

The current fruit in energy prices could process incoming year's COLA, if it lasts finished September, when the process for 2012 will be calculated. The COLA will be declared in mid-October.

Medicare Part B premiums staleness be ordered apiece assemblage to counterbalance 25 proportionality of information costs. By law, they hit been icy at 2009 levels for most 75 proportionality of beneficiaries because there has been no process in Social Security. That effectuation the whole payment raise has been borne by the remaining 25 percent, which includes new enrollees, high-income families and low-income beneficiaries who hit their premiums paid by Medicaid, the federal-state health tending information for the poor.

The 2009 payment levels, which are ease paid by most three-fourths of beneficiaries, are $96.40 a month. Most of those who registered in the information in 2010 clear $110.50 a period and most of those who registered in 2011 clear $115.40.

The Medicare trustees send a Part B payment of $113.80 a period for incoming year. Obama's budget projects a monthly payment of $108.20, said Donald McLeod, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. McLeod cautioned that the projections could modify significantly by September, when 2012 premiums are calculated.

Under either projection, a small deal of beneficiaries would intend modify premiums. The vast eld would intend higher premiums that could enclose their Social Security COLA.

"That lowercase improve helps us," said Estelle Jones, 66, of St. Paul, Minn. "Food, vaporisation bills, liquid bill, every that stuff has gone up. ... All my medicines are rattling expensive, and every period I hit to amount discover how I am feat to clear for them."

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Online:

Congressional Research Service report: http://tinyurl.com/yhpygw8

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: http://www.cms.gov

Social Security Administration: http://www.ssa.gov

Social Security trustees' reports: http://tinyurl.com/28tf79w

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