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 now scans applicants’ bank accounts, running geographic searches to catch hidden money
Supplemental Security Income runs on one of the strictest asset tests in the federal government, and the Social Security Administration increasingly enforces it with automation...
Enrolling in Part B at 65 opens a one-time window to buy any Medigap policy without health questions
Signing up for Medicare Part B at 65 does more than start doctor-visit coverage; it opens a one-time, six-month window to buy any Medigap supplement...
A program called PACE combines Medicare and Medicaid to keep frail seniors out of nursing homes
Most seniors who grow frail enough to qualify for a nursing home would rather stay in their own homes, and a little-known program is built...
Medicare’s QMB program bars doctors from billing enrolled seniors, yet many still get charged
For the lowest-income people on Medicare, a federal program is supposed to make the doctor’s office nearly free, yet many of them keep getting bills...
Skip creditable drug coverage for 63 days and Medicare can add a lifelong Part D penalty
Sixty-three days is the line that separates a clean Medicare record from a surcharge that can follow a beneficiary for the rest of their life....
When one spouse enters a nursing home on Medicaid, the other can keep about $3,948 a month
About $3,948 a month in 2026 is the most income the federal government will let a healthy spouse keep when a husband or wife enters...
After a senior dies, Medicaid can bill the estate for nursing-home care it paid
Nursing-home care routinely runs well past $9,000 a month, and Medicaid is the only program most older Americans can rely on to pay for a...
Delaying Social Security past full retirement age adds about 8% a year until you turn 70
Every month a worker postpones Social Security past full retirement age raises the eventual benefit by two-thirds of one percent, which compounds to roughly 8...
Claim Social Security after full retirement age and you can request up to six months as a lump sum
Claiming Social Security after full retirement age comes with an option that sounds appealing and hides a real cost. A worker who applies later than...
Workers under full retirement age can earn up to $24,480 in 2026 before Social Security holds back benefits
The 2026 earnings limit for Social Security recipients who keep working sits at $24,480. A beneficiary who stays below full retirement age for the entire...
Medicare caps your 2026 out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,100, then covered prescriptions cost nothing
Medicare’s Part D benefit now carries a hard ceiling on what a beneficiary spends out of pocket on covered prescriptions: $2,100 in 2026, up from...
Trump’s drug-pricing order aims to lower what seniors pay out of pocket on Medicare
A drug-pricing order pushed by the Trump administration aims to lower what Medicare beneficiaries pay out of pocket by tying certain U.S. prices to the...
Humana will drop Medicare Advantage plans for about 600,000 members in 2027
Humana plans to discontinue Medicare Advantage plans covering roughly 600,000 members in 2027, a cut the insurer confirmed for investors on its July 29, 2026...
A Senate bill would limit Social Security overpayment clawbacks to 10 years if it clears the Senate
A bill introduced in the Senate would stop the government from chasing decades-old Social Security overpayments that beneficiaries often never knew existed. The Social Security...
UnitedHealthcare’s preliminary 2027 plan would drop Medicare Advantage in 34 counties across 12 states
UnitedHealthcare has circulated a preliminary 2027 blueprint that would pull its Medicare Advantage plans out of 34 counties spread across 12 states, a shift that...
Social Security will no longer switch your direct deposit by phone, blocking a common theft
Social Security has shut one of the easier doors that thieves used to steal a monthly benefit. The agency will no longer change a recipient’s...
Medicare’s free yearly wellness visit is not the full physical many seniors expect
Many people turning 65 assume Medicare hands them an annual head-to-toe physical, the kind of thorough once-over a doctor might have delivered during working years....
Medicare’s new payment plan lets you spread a year of drug costs into monthly installments instead of paying all at once
A retiree who fills an expensive prescription in January can face a bill of several hundred dollars in a single trip to the pharmacy, and...
Medicare will pay $274 for Ozempic and Wegovy in 2027, down 71%
The government has set a negotiated Medicare price of $274 for a month’s supply of the blockbuster semaglutide drugs sold as Ozempic and Wegovy, a...
Your Medicare plan must mail its 2027 Annual Notice of Change by September 30, and skimming it can lock you into higher costs
Every September, private Medicare Advantage and standalone Part D drug plans drop a document called the Annual Notice of Change into millions of mailboxes, and...