Social Security & Medicare
Benefit changes, claiming strategies, eligibility rules, Medicare enrollment, Part D updates, and policy changes affecting retirees.
Latest in Social Security & Medicare
A surviving child can collect up to 75% of a late parent’s Social Security check
When a parent who paid into Social Security dies, the system can send monthly survivor payments to the children left behind, up to 75 percent...
Social Security’s “deemed filing” rule can force you to take your own and a spousal benefit at once
A claiming strategy that once let married couples collect a spousal check while their own benefit fattened toward age 70 is effectively gone, closed by...
The Social Security earnings limit jumps the year you reach full retirement age, then disappears entirely
Working while collecting Social Security before full retirement age triggers an earnings test that can claw back part of each check, but the rules loosen...
Same-sex and common-law married spouses can qualify for Social Security spousal and survivor benefits
Social Security’s spousal and survivor benefits, worth up to half of a living worker’s full benefit or the entire amount after a death, reach far...
Social Security bases your check on your 35 highest-earning years, and any missing years count as zeros
Social Security’s monthly retirement benefit rests on one long calculation: the agency indexes a worker’s lifetime wages, singles out the 35 best years, and averages...
A spousal Social Security benefit stops growing at full retirement age and earns no delayed credits
Delaying a Social Security claim from full retirement age to 70 rewards a worker’s own record with delayed retirement credits worth roughly 8 percent a...
A spouse who never worked can still get premium-free Medicare Part A on the worker’s record
A husband or wife who spent decades outside the paid workforce, or who never piled up enough covered earnings alone, can still walk into hospital...
You start earning Social Security cost-of-living raises at 62, even years before you claim a check
A worker who turns 62 this year quietly crosses a financial line that has nothing to do with signing up for benefits. From that birthday...
Waiting from 62 to 70 to claim Social Security can raise your monthly check by about 77%
The single largest lever most retirees hold over their monthly Social Security income is the calendar. A worker who claims at 62, the earliest age...
Dropping a hospital that leaves your Medicare Advantage plan can cost you up to $13,900 out of pocket
A hospital walking away from a Medicare Advantage network rarely arrives with much warning, yet the financial fallout can be severe. When roughly two dozen...
Some states add a monthly supplement to the federal SSI check for aged, blind or disabled residents
The federal Supplemental Security Income check pays a single recipient $994 a month in 2026 and a couple $1,491, the amounts set after a 2.8...
Medicaid may pay for home modifications like ramps and grab bars through a waiver
A wheelchair ramp, a set of bathroom grab bars, or a widened doorway can be the single change that lets an older adult stay home...
Veterans and their spouses can combine VA benefits with Medicaid to pay for long-term care
A veteran facing long-term-care costs does not have to choose between the Department of Veterans Affairs and Medicaid. The two programs can run at the...
A caregiver child who lived with and cared for a parent can shield the home from Medicaid recovery
For most families that rely on Medicaid to pay for a nursing home, the house is the one asset that survives the spend-down — and...
Medicaid can cover adult day care in many states, giving a family caregiver a paid break
Adult day care can run families hundreds to well over a thousand dollars a month, and for households built around a single unpaid caregiver it...
A Social Security “hold harmless” rule can keep a Part B premium jump from cutting most retirees’ checks
The standard Medicare Part B premium jumped to $202.90 a month for 2026, an increase of $17.90 over the $185 that enrollees paid in 2025...
Medicare covers a medically necessary ambulance ride when other travel would risk your health
Medicare will pay for an ambulance, but only under a test that catches many patients off guard: the ride has to be medically necessary, meaning...
Original Medicare now covers many telehealth visits from home
A retiree in Original Medicare can, right now, see a doctor by video from the kitchen table and have Medicare pay its share — a...
Anti-rejection drugs stay covered for life for Medicare kidney-transplant patients
For decades, Medicare paid for a kidney transplant and then, three years later, stopped paying for the drugs that keep the new organ alive. The...
Medicare pays for a one-time abdominal aortic aneurysm screening for those at risk
An abdominal aortic aneurysm gives almost no warning. The body’s largest artery balloons silently, often for years, until it ruptures — an event that kills...