(Image: Allison Bell/ALM)
If The Senior Citizens League is correct in its forecasts — and it has a strong record of that — roughly half of the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2020 for the average retiree will be wiped out by the increase in Medicare Part B premiums that year.
Based on its analysis of the recent Medicare Trustees Report, the league expects that the Medicare Part B premium, which pays for outpatient medical services and supplies such as doctor visits and medical equipment, will increase $8.80 per month, or 6.5%. It's forecasting a 1.2% COLA for Social Security, based on future projections of Consumer Price Index data available through March, which for the average beneficiary collecting $1,461 a month amounts to roughly $17.50.
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Bernice Napach
Bernice Napach is a senior writer at ThinkAdvisor covering financial markets and asset managers, robo-advisors, college planning and retirement issues. She has worked at Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, Reuters, Investor's Business Daily and The Bond Buyer and has written articles for The New York Times, TheStreet.com, The Star-Ledger, The Record, Variety and Worth magazine. Bernice has a Bachelor of Science in Social Welfare from SUNY at Stony Brook.
