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A Message from the Social Security Administration
Monday December 08, 2008MEDICARE PART B OPEN SEASON IS APPROACHING
If you are eligible for Medicare Part B medical insurance, but you didn’t sign up for it when you first became eligible for Medicare, you will have another opportunity to apply. Open season for Medicare Part B runs from January 1 until March 31, 2009. Better to act early than late — if you miss the deadline, you will have to wait until 2010 to apply.
Medicare Part B covers some medical expenses not covered by Medicare Part A (hospital insurance), such as doctors’ fees, outpatient hospital visits, and other medical services and supplies.
When you first become eligible for hospital insurance (Part A), you have an initial enrollment period of seven-months in which to sign up for medical insurance (Part B). After that, you have to pay a higher premium — unless the reason you declined Part B was because you were covered through an employer's group health plan or a group health plan based on a spouse's employment.
You are given another opportunity to enroll in Part B during the general enrollment period, from January 1 to March 31 of each year. But each 12-month period that you are eligible for Medicare Part B and do not sign up, the amount of your monthly premium increases by 10 percent.
Medicare is made up of four parts:
- Hospital insurance (Part A) that helps pay for inpatient care in a hospital or skilled nursing facility (following a hospital stay), some home health care and hospice care;
- Medical insurance (Part B) that helps pay for doctors’ services and many other medical services and supplies that are not covered by hospital insurance;
- Medicare Advantage (Part C) plans are available in many areas. People with Medicare Parts A and B can choose to receive all of their health care services through one of these provider organizations under Part C; and
- Prescription drug coverage (Part D) that helps pay for prescription medications.
In addition, some people with limited income and resources may qualify for extra help to pay for the costs — monthly premiums, annual deductibles and co-pays — related to their Medicare prescription drug plan (Part D). You can learn more about the extra help at www.socialsecurity.gov/prescriptionhelp.
You can learn more about Medicare by reading our electronic booklet, Medicare at www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10043.html. You also can call us toll-free at 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778) to ask for a copy. Or visit the Medicare website at www.medicare.gov. You also can call Medicare at 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227; TTY 1-877-486-2048).
Just remember the Medicare Part B open season runs from January 1 to March 31.
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SOCIAL SECURITY HAS GOOD TIDINGS TO SHARE THIS
As the holidays approach, Social Security has good tidings to share with Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries: they will receive a 5.8 percent increase in benefit payments beginning with the January payments!
The 5.8 percent Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) will begin with benefits that over 50 million Social Security beneficiaries receive in January 2009. Increased payments to more than 7 million SSI beneficiaries will begin on December 31.
Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits increase automatically each year based on the rise in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), from the third quarter of the prior year to the corresponding period of the current year.
This 5.8 percent increase is the largest since 1982.
Along with the annual COLA comes other changes’, including an increase in the amount of wages subject to Social Security tax. In 2008, the maximum taxable amount was $102,000. Beginning in 2009, the maximum taxable amount will be $106,800. This change will affect about 11 million of the 164 million workers who pay Social Security tax. The tax rate remains the same: 6.2 for employers and employees, and 12.4 for the self employed.
In 2009 it will take $1,090 in taxable earnings to earn a credit of coverage for Social Security, up from $1,050 in 2008. All workers can earn up to four credits in a year.
The average retired worker will receive $1,153 per month in Social Security benefits in 2009, up from $1,090 in 2008.
People who have Medicare coverage will want to visit Medicare’s website at www.medicare.gov for changes coming in 2009.
To learn more about Social Security changes coming in 2009, visit our online fact sheet at www.socialsecurity.gov/pressoffice/factsheets/colafacts2009.htm.
As always, you can find a wealth of information about Social Security at our website, www.socialsecurity.gov.
RETIREMENT ESTIMATOR NAMED BEST ONLINE SERVICE IN GOVERNMENT
There’s never been a better time than the present to plan for your retirement. Why’s that? Because Social Security’s Retirement Estimator has just been rated the best online service in government! You can find it online at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator.
Every quarter, the
The online Retirement Estimator is a convenient, secure and quick financial planning tool that lets workers calculate how much they might expect to receive in Social Security benefits when they retire. The attractive new feature of this calculator is that it eliminates the need to manually key in years of earnings information. It’s so easy to use.
The new Retirement Estimator debuted with a score of 90, the highest score in this survey. Perhaps even more impressive, it is the second-highest score ever received by any government website or online service.
Several other Social Security online services, including our online retirement application, also are rated among the government’s top performers and equal to the highest caliber private sector sites, such as Amazon and Google. But for the new Retirement Estimator to be rated best in government just two months after it was launched is a testament to how easy and useful it is.
The new Retirement Estimator is available at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator and gives the public the opportunity to run accurate, personalized scenarios for Social Security retirement benefits in a user-friendly way.
You also can create “what if” scenarios. For example, you can change “stop work” dates or expected future earnings to create and compare different retirement options that may be in your future.
So experience the best online service in government now by visiting Social Security’s Retirement Estimator at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator.