There is absolutely no truth to the nonsense about Medicare Part B Premiums reaching $247 in 2014.   I've received a number of postings over the last few months leading up to the Annual Enrollment Period for Medicare Beneficiaries.  This widely circulating eMail is utterly false.

Only 27 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are paying the basic rate. The rest — 73 percent — are paying less under a "hold harmless" provision triggered by the lack of a cost-of-living increase in Social Security back to 2009. Most are still paying $96.40.

The premium is set each year by Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary, these projections were given to FactCheck.org — the most recent available — which are current as of the president’s budget for fiscal year 2012 issued in mid-February:

• 2010:   $110.50
• 2011:    $115.40
• 2012:    $108.20
• 2013:    $112.10
• 2014:    $117.10

They are actually a few dollars lower than what Medicare officials were projecting six months earlier, in May 2011, when the most recent report of the system’s trustees was issued. Those published projections, now outdated, can be found on page 234. Officials told FactCheck.org that they lowered their projections because actual Part B costs in 2010 turned out to be somewhat lower than previously estimated.)

It’s true that the gradual rise in the basic Medicare premium will — for most seniors — likely be enough to offset the small cost-of-living increase that Social Security recipients can expect in 2012. And a few seniors — those who were not held-harmless in 2011 and who are therefore paying this year’s standard premium of $115.40 — will almost certainly see a reduction in their premium for 2012 — to $108.20 if the current projections holds. But the claim that Part B premiums could more than double by 2014 is ludicrous, and has no basis in fact.

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