2023 Medicare Premiums and What to Expect

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
This is live from Miss Medicare Texas Studios. This is Toni King and yes I am Miss Medicare. Because I am on Medicare. You are listening to us today with our Medicare moments podcast, and I want to thank you. I took the Medicare and You handbook and I put it in people’s terms. I have Jim here with me today and Jim is going to guide and direct me because Miss Medicare can start talking. Thanks for joining us on the Medicare Moments podcast. Toni, it’s great to be here. Well, thank you. It’s great to have you. And I want to say congratulations on your new book. Thank you. That is available and we’ll tell you more about that as we go through the podcast. But YOU’RE gonna want to get a copy of Toni’s new book, so be ready for all the information that’s coming at you. And, Toni, we like questions, right, that’s how we do the podcast each week, so we look for you to send your questions to us and that email addresses info at ToniSays.com. That’s info@ ToniSays.com and you can send us your questions that way, or if you’d like to call us with your questions. A three to five one nine sounds good, so we look forward to your cause. We look forward to your questions, so don’t be shy, reach out and send us some. Here’s one Toni from someone named Sarah in the Great State of Texas. I’ve recently enrolled in Medicare and received my free Medicare and You Handbook and cannot find what the Medicare costs will be. Do you have any idea what the new Medicare costs are going to be? Toni, how can you help? Well, I just want to tell Sarah, the costs were released early this year. Can you believe that? Jim? Normally the new costs don’t come out until after the election period. Correct, they’re generally released around November the tenth, but this year they released them early. In September the numbers were released. Sarah didn’t know the cost they printed the book Medicare and You Handbook six months ago, so at the time whenever they printed the book, the numbers weren’t in it. Do we have any idea why the costs were released early this year? Not Really, they just did. They just did. They just released them early. I don’t want to get into politics, but I think a lot of it has to do with this election. They released the cost I don’t know why it’s always after November the tenth that the numbers are released. But this year everything is coming early. The social security costs are coming early, and the Medicare costs are coming early. So getting back to Sarah’s question, what’s it look like for costs for the upcoming year which starts in January? The one that’s right, and here they are. We’ve got them so you can write them down. Everybody needs to get a pan. Here’s what the new numbers are. The Medicare part A and B premium costs were released by CMS. So what is CMS main Jim that is the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Toni and like we said, the costs were released earlier. They were just released. But do you know what they forgot to tell us? They went up by thirty dollars the year before. Yeah, so they went up, but they brought it down by seven dollars. And all the other parts of Medicare, such as part a, the inpatient hospital cost, and the Medicare part D prescription drug costs have increased and we’re going to be back right after this break with some more information on the cost for Medicare in don’t go away, so welcome back to our podcast. Today. We’re talking about three premiums for Medicare and you can find out all of this information by the way, at ToniSays.com. All of the information with all of the new premium costs are going to be there. So Toni, what are we looking at for, well, we’re gonna talk about the premiums, but we’re also going to talk about the cost which your deductibles and copies are going to be as far as Medicare part A, Medicare part B, and guess what else, they’re going to find out how the prescription drug plans are going to be for next year, what the costs are gonna be. So let’s start where the premiums going. There’s two parts to original Medicare Part A and part B. The new three Medicare parts. Inpatient hospital deductible went up by forty-four dollars, so it went from fifteen hundred and fifty-six dollars in two to six hundred three. So whenever you go in the hospital and you’re having an inpatient hospital stay, the deductible for this year is sixteen hundred dollars. But it’s not once a year. It is not a one time a year deductible. It is six times. It starts over every sixty days. So for the next year for the part A, which is the inpatient hospital stay, is sixteen hundred dollars six times a year. Under Part A is skilled nursing. That’s when you have to go into a skilled facility. And days one through twenty or zero, and days twenty-one through one hundred is going to be two hundred dollars per day. It just keeps on going up, so it’s two hundred dollars a day up to day one hundred. After that you pay a hundred percent out of your pocket. That’s why people need a long-term care policy, or if they’re in a certain income range, they can get on Medicaid and let the state pay for it help them pay for their long-term care. But that’s what you got. So days one through twenty for skilled nursing or zero, days twenty-one through one hundred is two hundred dollars per day. You got that, Jim, I do. That’s a lot of money, I know, and that’s why people either get a Medicare supplement. Are they going with a Medicare Advantage plan so they can get some of the costs picked up if they ended up going with a Medicare supplement, depending on which one you pick, you could have everything picked up there, all right, and now we’re gonna talk about part B because that is everybody’s lifeline. That’s your medical part of Medicare. And in three the new Part B deductible. It decreased this year. It went from two hundred and thirty-three dollars down to two hundred twenty-six. So the deductible for next year for Part B as in boy and that is your medical part, is two hundred and twenty-six dollars and this starts January one. Medical care is gonna pay eighty percent of the approved amount and you have to pay twenty percent if you don’t have something to pick it up. Help with the cost would be either a Medicare supplement that works with original Medicare, or they could go with a Medicare part C plan and you’ve got deductibles and copays. We’ve talked about that in the past, haven’t we have, and the part B premium also decreased it went down by five dollars and twenty cents from a hundred and seventy dollars and ten cents two hundred and sixty-four dollars and ninety cents for three. So the cost that’s coming out of your social security check for having Medicare part B next year is going to be a hundred and sixty-four dollars and ninety cents. And that’s better. It’s gone down. It is better. It’s gone down. Now, are these ties to income at all in any way? A little bit? How’s that work? The cost it goes up as your income goes up. This year they raised the income amount, which is a good thing. So anything that is higher than ninety-seven thousand as an individual, are hundred nine thousand as a couple, you’re going to pay more. Last year the numbers were thousand, and it was a hundred ninety-two. So they went from nine thousand to ninety-seven thousand, which is good. They’re paying less money. It is good. And again thank you for joining us on the podcast today. And we’re talking about Medicare and premiums and adjustments in who sets these numbers? Is that the federal government? Is it just Medicare. who how are these numbers arrived at? It’s the federal government with Medicare and Social Security. They all work together. So when we talk about they were talking about the federal government. They’re the ones that not only would set the Medicare increases, but probably also the Social Security cost of living increases in such what they do correct and this year they’ve done people a lot of favors because if you made more than nine thousand last year up to ninety seven, your part b premium is going to be less. And then as a couple it’s hundred nine four thousand, which is good. And all this starts January 1st, it is. And now what about part d? Has that been impacted for big time? Big time? It’s amazing as to what they did for part day. The cost is going up again. And now let’s take a break, and when we come back, Toni is going to tell us about part d and the cost for that I were associated with that. Don’t go away. Welcome back to Medicare moments with Toni King as your host, and she is talking to us today about three and how the federal government has changed the cost of Medicare for this upcoming year. Toni, what does part D look like? Well? What Part Day? Things have increased and I’m sure the cost of prescriptions are going up a little bit also. So this year you’re deductible for Medicare. Part D went up by twenty-five dollars. It went from four hundred-eight to five hundred and five. So you have a deductible for your prescription drug plan in you haven’t a coverage limit Medicare’s initial coverage limit. And people they wonder, why do I get in the donut hole? What causes me to get in the donut hole? And they’re so used to copies they don’t realize that spending a certain amount of money then you go into the donut hole. Did you know that, Jim, no, but I need you to explain the term donut hole to me again. The donut hole is when you reach a certain amount, you have spent a certain amount of money for your prescription drugs. Then you go into what we call the donut hole. Or the coverage gap, and at that time you have to start spending more money. When a person gets in the donut hole, they know it because the cost of their prescriptions go from their copaid to an amount of where you have to pay more, and we’ve probably all run into that with maybe someone in front of a set of pharmacy saying it costs what and they just weren’t expecting it. So it’s important. So how how has that impacted in well, this year the part d coverage limit the doughnut hole increased by two hundred and thirty dollars. It went from four thousand, four hundred thirty dollars in two to four thousand, six hundred and sixty dollars. So once the true cost to your drugs grows to four thousand, six hundred and sixty dollars, then you get into the donut hole where you have to pay more. And that’s where that begins. Once you have reached that amount of money four thousand, six hundred and sixty dollars, so you know, you spend a little more and then you end up going into the donut hole. So the party ends when you have spent a total of seven thousand, four hundred dollars or seventy so you’re out of pocket at that level, right, that’s when you go into what’s called catastrophic coverage. And what is catastrophic coverage they pick up the rest of the prescriptions from that point out, well, when a person gets into catastrophic coverage, they know they’re in it. They’ve already spent a lot of money and they will spend like five percent of that cost to your drugs. So if you’re taking something like Humira, that seven thousand dollars, that’s what Humira costs. Now you’ll pay five percent of that seven thousand dollars, which is three D and fifty dollars, which is still a lot of money, but you’ll pay five percent of it. So people know it when they have expensive drugs, they know what’s going on. A couple of years ago, the donut hole was supposed to go away. I mean, I don’t know if you remember that, but it’s like one of the other things with the government. Things that are supposed to go away doing always go away. When they say they’re going to go away, well they change the name, that’s what happened. So they create a moving target. So in they now call it the donut hole discount program. So you’re getting a discount, and the discount is think will receive a seventy donut hold discount. So you’re gonna have to pay twenty-five of the brand name drug. The drug company pays seventy percent of that drug that you’re taking, and the part D planned five percent. So that’s the discount program. And this is all spelled out on ToniSays.com where you have the new fees for three already listened. Sure is and you know what, it’s also built out on the SeniorResource.com website where they have the article that tells all about it. It’s kind of hard to just sit out and talk about this. You really got to look at it. You know. If people need a Medicare check-up, then they can call the Toni Says Office at eight three two five one nine, or they can email us at info@ToniSays.com. We want to thank you for listening to Medicare Moments with your host Toni King. And Toni’s new book is available for you. It’s the Medicare Survival Guide Advanced and it’s available at ToniSays.com or SeniorResource.com. You’re gonna want to get a copy. Get them now while they’re fresh off the press. So, Toni, congratulations on your new book. Well, thank you I appreciate it, and thank you for joining us, jam, and thank you everybody for being here with us. And we just want to say if you have questions, please email us at info@ToniSays.com or you can visit the Senior Resource website, which is in your SeniorResource.com and you can also find this podcast there, so we will see you later. God bless you, and God bless America.