Social Security raise fleeting
Social Security card Credit: HANDOUT -SAVE/Handout
For the first time since 2009, Social Security recipients are likely to get a cost-of-living increase next year. What most of them won't get, thanks to spiraling health care costs, is more money in their pockets.
About 45 million people receive both Medicare and Social Security. For almost all of them, the Medicare Part B premium deducted from their check will increase enough that they won't net any more than they do now.
That puts Social Security recipients in much the same boat as workers. With the economy in tatters since 2008, plenty of employees either haven't gotten raises or have found that when they did, their increased health insurance premiums consumed the added pay.
In fact, Social Security recipients are better protected from health insurance increases than workers. Their checks, by law, cannot be reduced to cover increased health care premiums, regardless of whether Medicare costs rise. That's not true for many in the workforce whose net sinks as premiums rise faster than pay.
If we can't control health care costs in this nation, we will never better our standard of living. The issue goes far beyond debates over the wisdom of health care reform and employer-provided benefits.
We must live healthier, and deploy health care resources more wisely, regardless of how that care is dispersed. If we can't, we'll end up broke, as individuals and as a nation, no matter how much money we make.
