Social Security & Medicare
Benefit changes, claiming strategies, eligibility rules, Medicare enrollment, Part D updates, and policy changes affecting retirees.
Latest in Social Security & Medicare
SSI recipients get a second double-payment month in December, and nothing arrives in January
Supplemental Security Income recipients who watched two payments land in October are about to see the pattern repeat in December, this time swapping January’s deposit...
Medicare is adding a benefit for heart failure and COPD that Advantage members cannot use
Starting in spring 2027, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will let beneficiaries with heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, substance use disorders or...
Medicare will not count what TrumpRx saves a patient toward the drug deductible or the out-of-pocket cap
Medicare’s cost-help page now sends beneficiaries shopping for a better prescription price to TrumpRx.gov, a federal website built to surface the lowest cash price on...
Savings up to $9,950 do not disqualify a single person from having Medicare pay the full Part B premium
A Medicare beneficiary who has saved $9,950 — the exact figure state caseworkers use to size up a Medicare Savings Program application in 2026 —...
Federal rules require Medicare Advantage non-renewal letters to be dated October 2
Every Medicare Advantage or Part D contract CMS declines to renew triggers the same requirement, regardless of which insurer holds it: the notice explaining the...
The Medigap window after a Medicare Advantage plan drops you opens 60 days before coverage ends, not after
A federal guaranteed-issue right lets a Medicare Advantage enrollee whose plan is leaving Medicare, exiting the enrollee’s county, or misrepresenting its coverage buy any Medigap...
About 360,000 Humana members will have to find coverage on their own after the insurer drops their plans
Humana Inc. told investors in July that Medicare Advantage contracts it plans to drop for 2027 cover roughly 600,000 members, the latest round in a...
A major Florida hospital is dropping two Medicare Advantage plans, cutting seniors out of network in 2027
Naples Comprehensive Health, one of Southwest Florida’s largest nonprofit hospital systems, will go out of network with two Medicare Advantage insurers at the end of...
About one in ten Medicare Advantage members may need a new plan for 2027 as insurers pull back
Roughly one in ten Medicare Advantage members may need to shop for a new plan for 2027, as insurers finalize another round of exits and...
Working while collecting Social Security early can temporarily shrink the monthly check
A retiree who claims Social Security at 62 and keeps working full time can watch a chunk of that monthly check disappear before it ever...
Social Security’s payment for the month a spouse dies must be returned
A family that keeps the Social Security deposit that lands the month after a spouse dies is holding money the government will eventually ask for...
Social Security is ending paper checks this year, and people who cannot bank must request a waiver
Social Security is completing its shift away from paper checks in 2026, more than a year after the Treasury Department’s September 30, 2025 deadline for...
Some public retirees are still waiting on Social Security back pay owed to them
By the time the Social Security Administration marked its biggest processing milestone last summer, it had sent more than 3.1 million retroactive payments worth $17...
The full retirement age for Social Security has reached 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later
Every American born in 1960 or later now runs into the same number when they plan a Social Security claim: 67. That is the full...
Medicare’s Annual Notice of Change letters are landing now, listing every 2027 plan cut
Medicare Advantage and Part D plans are required to mail their Annual Notice of Change letters by September 30, and this year’s batch is landing...
Social Security’s 2027 raise will be announced October 14, with estimates near 3.5%
The Social Security Administration will announce the official 2027 cost-of-living adjustment on October 14, 2026, once the Bureau of Labor Statistics finishes calculating September’s inflation...
One costly prescription can hit Medicare’s new 2027 drug ceiling by February
Medicare has already set the 2027 numbers for its Part D out-of-pocket cap, and they’re both moving up: the annual ceiling on covered drug costs...
Medicare’s second round of drug-price cuts covers 15 more medications in 2027
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has finalized a second list of 15 brand-name drugs that will carry a federally negotiated “maximum fair price”...
UnitedHealthcare is exiting 34 counties in 12 states, cutting its Medicare Advantage rolls by about a million
UnitedHealthcare has told brokers it is weighing an exit from Medicare Advantage plans in 34 counties across 12 states for 2027, the latest retreat from...
Selling a home can push a retiree’s income high enough to raise Medicare premiums two years later
A retiree who sells a long-held home for a substantial profit in one year can find a Medicare premium bill waiting two years later that...