Seniors Will Pay for Fixing Medicare Premium Spike

The Medi­care deal pays for it­self by cre­at­ing a more mod­est in­crease in premi­ums for 30 per­cent of seni­ors in 2016, but then adding an ad­di­tion­al $3 to those seni­ors’ monthly premi­ums un­til the "loan" from the Fed­er­al Treas­ury to the Sup­ple­ment­ary Med­ic­al In­sur­ance Trust Fund is paid off. Medi­care be­ne­fi­ciar­ies who cur­rently pay high­er in­come-re­lated premi­ums -- for ex­ample, wealth­i­er seni­ors or those whose premi­ums are paid by Medi­caid -- will pay more than an ad­di­tion­al $3 a month to re­pay the loan.

"It’s ba­sic­ally spread­ing that in­crease over the next nine years," said Loren Adler, a re­search dir­ect­or at the Com­mit­tee for a Re­spons­ible Fed­er­al Budget.