Income and Assets

Following up on an earlier column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank on seniors and poverty, Drew Altman looks at why older women will be more at risk of economic insecurity than men in the future. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available.

Following up on an earlier column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank on seniors and poverty, Drew Altman looks at why older women will be more at risk of economic insecurity than men in the future.

In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses why seniors need to be included in the national discussion on income inequality, especially as proposals to change Medicare and Social Security are considered. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available.

In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses why seniors need to be included in the national discussion on income inequality, especially as proposals to change Medicare and Social Security are considered.

Some higher-income Medicare beneficiaries will have to pay more in Part B and Part D premiums starting in 2018, due to a provision in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, a recently passed law to change how Medicare pays physicians. A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis finds that,…

This data note presents new information to help set a context for understanding the implications of recent changes to Medicare’s income-related premiums incorporated in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), a new law to repeal and replace Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula for physician payments. It describes current requirements with respect to the income-related premiums under Medicare Part B and Part D, including the number and share of Medicare beneficiaries who are estimated to pay income-related premiums and revenues raised from the income-related premium, based on data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary (OACT). It also explains the recently enacted changes in MACRA that will affect some higher-income people on Medicare who are already paying income-related premiums, beginning in 2018.

Since 2007, seniors with incomes greater than $85,000 have had to pay higher premiums for Medicare than their counterparts with lower incomes.  Six percent of Medicare Part B enrollees are expected to pay higher monthly premiums in 2015, ranging from $147 to $336, depending on their income.  Lawmakers on Capitol…

In The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman asks, “what’s your image of America’s seniors?” and provides some facts on the income and assets of Medicare enrollees.

A small share of the 52.4 million elderly individuals and people with disabilities on Medicare have relatively high incomes, but most are of modest means — with half living on incomes of less than $23,500 last year. Although the majority of beneficiaries have some savings, the value of their assets…