Social Security & Medicare
Benefit changes, claiming strategies, eligibility rules, Medicare enrollment, Part D updates, and policy changes affecting retirees.
Latest in Social Security & Medicare
Social Security pursues a dead beneficiary’s estate last, after three other steps
Social Security’s inspector general has calculated that the agency could still recover about $106 million from the estates, relatives and survivors of 8,486 beneficiaries who...
The Part D out-of-pocket ceiling stands at $2,100 for 2026, and nothing is owed above it
Medicare’s Part D drug benefit enters 2026 with an annual out-of-pocket threshold of $2,100, up $100 from the year before, and the Centers for Medicare...
Extra Help counts $18,090 in resources for someone who sets aside burial money
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services set the 2026 resource ceiling for the Extra Help drug subsidy at $16,590 for a single applicant, rising...
The demonstration that held standalone Medicare drug premiums down ends after December, and 2027 plans go back to market conditions
The federal program that has kept standalone Medicare drug plan premiums from swinging wildly for the past two years is being retired. The Centers for...
A free federal drug-price site does not count toward a Medicare deductible
Millions of Medicare beneficiaries have started comparing prescription prices on TrumpRx.gov, the no-cost federal price-comparison website the Trump administration launched in February 2026, and many...
Medicare’s telehealth-from-home rule expires December 31, 2027
Medicare’s home-based telehealth option now carries a fixed end date: December 31, 2027. Under the flexibility currently in place, Medicare beneficiaries can complete a wide...
Original Medicare adds heart-failure and COPD support next spring, and three of four enrollees qualify for at least one track
Heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease will join three other conditions covered by Medicare’s ACCESS Model starting in spring 2027, the Centers for Medicare...
Medicare Advantage debit cards must verify a covered purchase at the register in 2027
Starting January 1, 2027, the debit and flex cards that Medicare Advantage plans issue for groceries, over-the-counter items and other supplemental benefits will have to...
Medicare Advantage plans need not flag unspent supplemental money mid-year in 2027
Medicare Advantage insurers will no longer have to send members a mid-year reminder about supplemental benefits sitting unused on their plan, under a final rule...
Going 63 days without Medicare drug coverage attaches a penalty that never comes off the premium
A Medicare beneficiary who goes 63 or more consecutive days without Part D or other creditable prescription drug coverage after their Initial Enrollment Period ends...
When Medicare itself ends a plan’s contract, members get one month before and two full months after to move
A Medicare Advantage or Part D enrollee whose plan contract is terminated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services does not simply lose coverage...
Switching back out of Medicare Advantage is allowed once between January 1 and March 31, and only one way
Medicare beneficiaries who pick a Medicare Advantage plan during fall Open Enrollment get exactly one chance to reverse that decision once the new year starts,...
States can raise or even eliminate the income limits on Medicare Savings Programs, so an application can clear the federal cutoff
The Social Security Administration’s Program Operations Manual System sets the 2026 federal income ceiling for a Medicare Savings Program at $1,350 a month for an...
Extra Help lets a single person hold $16,590 in resources and still pay $4.90 for a brand drug
A single Medicare beneficiary can hold as much as $16,590 in savings, stocks, and other countable resources in 2026 and still qualify for the full...
Medicare drug plans must carry all fifteen negotiated drugs from January 1
Every standalone Medicare Part D plan and every Medicare Advantage prescription drug plan must add all fifteen federally negotiated drugs to its formulary starting January...
Medicare is negotiating prices for Part B drugs for the first time, with 15 picked for January 2028
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services named 15 drugs on January 27 for the third cycle of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, the...
A dual-eligible special needs plan can only enroll members of its affiliated Medicaid plan from January 1
Beginning January 1, 2027, a Medicare dual-eligible special needs plan tied to a Medicaid managed-care company will only be allowed to newly enroll people who...
New Medicare marketing rules take effect October 1, two weeks before enrollment season opens
A federal rule rewriting how Medicare Advantage and Part D plans market coverage takes effect October 1, 2026, just two weeks before the Medicare Annual...
A federal audit found Social Security withheld benefits before appeal rights had expired, among errors in 75 percent of sampled cases
Seventy-five percent of the administrative-sanction cases sampled by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general contained errors, including instances where the agency withheld benefits before a...
An SSI applicant paying a relative full market rent keeps the benefit
On August 31, 2026, the Social Security Administration retired a policy that had applied only to Supplemental Security Income recipients in three states, after concluding...