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Retirement expert: Medicare already means-tested

Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
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Contact: Phil Ciciora
pciciora@illinois.edu
217-333-2177
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The Obama administration's controversial proposal to "means-test" Medicare recipients is ostensibly aimed at generating more cash for the government from those who can afford it or squeezing more money out of upper-income seniors, depending upon one's point of view. But according to a University of Illinois expert on retirement benefits, the Medicare program is already means-tested.

Law professor Richard L. Kaplan says whenever the issue of cutting Medicare emerges, one of the first ideas to "fix" the program is to make its upper-income beneficiaries pay more.

"Indeed, the claim is often advanced that it is silly if not offensive to have low-income workers pay higher taxes so that wealthy beneficiaries can receive subsidized benefits from the Medicare program," said Kaplan, the Peer and Sarah Pedersen Professor at Illinois. "But the underlying premise is that Medicare is not already means-tested, and that is simply not the case."

Medicare Part A is financed by a 2.9 percent payroll tax imposed on all wages, salaries and income from self-employment, so higher-earning people already pay more for their Part A benefits. Starting this year, individuals with annual earnings above $200,000 and married couples with annual earnings above $250,000 will owe an additional 0.9 percent in Medicare tax, according to Kaplan.

Those taxpayers also will owe a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on their investment income in excess of those same thresholds.

Medicare Part B and Part D employ a more direct form of means-testing namely, increased premiums based on taxable income during one's retirement years, Kaplan said.

"Eschewing the precise mechanics of the applicable provisions, any Medicare beneficiary whose income exceeds an annually determined threshold pays an increased amount for coverage under these components of Medicare," Kaplan said.

"Thus, once taxable income with certain adjustments reaches the specified threshold, the amount paid by enrollees in either Medicare Part B or Medicare Part D is increased according to a four-step rate schedule."

Moreover, the formula was made more severe when the health care reform legislation enacted in 2010 froze the applicable income thresholds for the next 10 years, Kaplan said.

"Those thresholds are not indexed for inflation and will therefore affect more people over time," he said. "Furthermore, the Obama administration has proposed adding additional brackets a total of nine brackets versus the four we have now so that charges rise faster as income goes up."

Kaplan said that unlike Social Security benefits, which bear a close relationship to one's pre-retirement earnings, there is no correlation between one's pre-retirement earnings and the benefits a person receives from Medicare Part A.

"The value of Medicare benefits received correlates with a person's health, not wealth, so a less-healthy retiree will receive more from Medicare than a healthier retiree," he said. "To the extent that wealthy retirees are healthier than their poorer counterparts, there is an inverse relationship between income prior to retirement and benefits received from the Medicare program."

According to Kaplan, some policymakers oppose the very concept of means-testing benefits, regardless of the specific formula employed, arguing that Medicare is a social insurance program and should provide equal benefits to all participants regardless of their individual resources.

"Means-testing benefits, in their view, risks converting Medicare into another welfare-oriented program, with the possible erosion of popular support and potential exposure to the sort of reductions that such programs often suffer in difficult economic times," Kaplan said. "Other policymakers oppose means-testing Medicare because they regard reducing promised benefits on the basis of income as a disguised tax, a penalty on 'success,' in their view."

Thus, the idea that Medicare benefits should be means-tested raises genuine philosophical issues and is not a policy "slam dunk."

"The bottom line is that the individual components of Medicare are means-tested currently," Kaplan said. "Some lawmakers, no doubt, might prefer that the degree to which Medicare is means-tested be increased, but the fact remains that Medicare is already means-tested."

Kaplan's paper, "Top Ten Myths of Medicare," was published in The Elder Law Journal.

###

Editor's notes: To contact Richard L. Kaplan, call 217-333-2499; email rkaplan@illinois.edu. The article, "Top Ten Myths of Medicare," is available online.

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Retirement expert: Medicare already means-tested Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phil Ciciora
pciciora@illinois.edu
217-333-2177
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The Obama administration's controversial proposal to "means-test" Medicare recipients is ostensibly aimed at generating more cash for the government from those who can afford it or squeezing more money out of upper-income seniors, depending upon one's point of view. But according to a University of Illinois expert on retirement benefits, the Medicare program is already means-tested.

Law professor Richard L. Kaplan says whenever the issue of cutting Medicare emerges, one of the first ideas to "fix" the program is to make its upper-income beneficiaries pay more.

"Indeed, the claim is often advanced that it is silly if not offensive to have low-income workers pay higher taxes so that wealthy beneficiaries can receive subsidized benefits from the Medicare program," said Kaplan, the Peer and Sarah Pedersen Professor at Illinois. "But the underlying premise is that Medicare is not already means-tested, and that is simply not the case."

Medicare Part A is financed by a 2.9 percent payroll tax imposed on all wages, salaries and income from self-employment, so higher-earning people already pay more for their Part A benefits. Starting this year, individuals with annual earnings above $200,000 and married couples with annual earnings above $250,000 will owe an additional 0.9 percent in Medicare tax, according to Kaplan.

Those taxpayers also will owe a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on their investment income in excess of those same thresholds.

Medicare Part B and Part D employ a more direct form of means-testing namely, increased premiums based on taxable income during one's retirement years, Kaplan said.

"Eschewing the precise mechanics of the applicable provisions, any Medicare beneficiary whose income exceeds an annually determined threshold pays an increased amount for coverage under these components of Medicare," Kaplan said.

"Thus, once taxable income with certain adjustments reaches the specified threshold, the amount paid by enrollees in either Medicare Part B or Medicare Part D is increased according to a four-step rate schedule."

Moreover, the formula was made more severe when the health care reform legislation enacted in 2010 froze the applicable income thresholds for the next 10 years, Kaplan said.

"Those thresholds are not indexed for inflation and will therefore affect more people over time," he said. "Furthermore, the Obama administration has proposed adding additional brackets a total of nine brackets versus the four we have now so that charges rise faster as income goes up."

Kaplan said that unlike Social Security benefits, which bear a close relationship to one's pre-retirement earnings, there is no correlation between one's pre-retirement earnings and the benefits a person receives from Medicare Part A.

"The value of Medicare benefits received correlates with a person's health, not wealth, so a less-healthy retiree will receive more from Medicare than a healthier retiree," he said. "To the extent that wealthy retirees are healthier than their poorer counterparts, there is an inverse relationship between income prior to retirement and benefits received from the Medicare program."

According to Kaplan, some policymakers oppose the very concept of means-testing benefits, regardless of the specific formula employed, arguing that Medicare is a social insurance program and should provide equal benefits to all participants regardless of their individual resources.

"Means-testing benefits, in their view, risks converting Medicare into another welfare-oriented program, with the possible erosion of popular support and potential exposure to the sort of reductions that such programs often suffer in difficult economic times," Kaplan said. "Other policymakers oppose means-testing Medicare because they regard reducing promised benefits on the basis of income as a disguised tax, a penalty on 'success,' in their view."

Thus, the idea that Medicare benefits should be means-tested raises genuine philosophical issues and is not a policy "slam dunk."

"The bottom line is that the individual components of Medicare are means-tested currently," Kaplan said. "Some lawmakers, no doubt, might prefer that the degree to which Medicare is means-tested be increased, but the fact remains that Medicare is already means-tested."

Kaplan's paper, "Top Ten Myths of Medicare," was published in The Elder Law Journal.

###

Editor's notes: To contact Richard L. Kaplan, call 217-333-2499; email rkaplan@illinois.edu. The article, "Top Ten Myths of Medicare," is available online.

[ | E-mail | Share ]
?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uoia-rem042913.php
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Putin, Obama speak again amid probe into Tamerlan Tsarnaev

The wider ripple effects of the Boston Marathon bombings are showing up in US-Russia relations.

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama talked by phone Monday, and they agreed to maintain close contact between their respective intelligence agencies and to work together on security matters of joint concern including the 2014 Olympics that Russia is hosting in Sochi.

Relations between the two nations have been strained of late, but the naming of two brothers of Chechen heritage as the key suspects in the April 15 Boston bombings, the Monitor reported earlier Monday, have opened the door to possible improvement, at least on the issue of countering terrorist threats.

But the forward-looking cooperation is occurring as some big questions remain about who knew what, and when, about the radicalization of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The FBI identified him as a key suspect in the attacks, and he died April 19 after a gun battle with police, during which his brother also ran over him while trying to escape in a hijacked car.

RECOMMENDED: Boston bombing reveals a new American maturity toward insecurity

US officials have said Russia in 2011 raised concerns with the FBI and CIA, separately, about possible ties of Mr. Tsarnaev to radical Islamist views. That has raised questions about the effectiveness of US law enforcement agencies at screening for potential terrorist threats.

Here are other recent developments in the Boston Marathon bombings case:

Want your top political issues explained? Get customized DC Decoder updates.

?FBI agents have visited the Rhode Island home of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's in-laws and carried away several bags, the Associated Press reported Monday. Katherine Russell, Tsarnaev's widow, has been staying there. She left with her attorneys through a separate door.

?Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the other bombing suspect and Tamerlan?s 19-year-old brother, has been moved from a Boston hospital to a prison medical center outside the city. Whereas Tamerlan was in the US on a green card, Dzhokhar is a US citizen. Prosecutors are charging him with using a weapon of mass destruction ? the two marathon-day bombs that killed three people and injured more than 200.

?The brothers? parents, who are now in Russia but who lived in the US for much of the past decade, have backed off from any plans to travel to the US. Anzor Tsarnaev, the father, said that he believed he would not be allowed to see his surviving son, and that he is not feeling well, according to wire service reports. The body of his older son is unclaimed, and a spokesman for the state medical examiner told Reuters that the office is waiting to report autopsy results until someone claims the body.

?According to news reports over the weekend, Tamerlan Tsarnaev spoke to his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, about "jihad" in a 2011 phone call secretly recorded by Russian officials.

On Sunday Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he believes that the bombing suspects? mother played a "very strong role" in her sons' radicalization process. But the motives behind the attacks remain a matter on which investigators are still piecing together the full story.

RECOMMENDED: Boston bombing reveals a new American maturity toward insecurity

Monday, April 29, 2013

Google Now comes to iPhone, challenging Apple's Siri

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc is bringing its Google Now technology to the iPhone, where it will compete head-on with Apple Inc's Siri to serve as the primary service that smartphone users rely on to get everything from weather updates to traffic forecasts.

Google Now, which made its debut last year on mobile devices powered by Google's Android operating system, will be available as a feature in the new version of the Google Search app for iPhones and iPads starting on Monday.

Personal assistant technology such as Apple's Siri, Google Now and products created by various start-up companies aspire to play what could become a critical role on smartphones by helping users with daily chores such as looking up information on the Web, handling calendar appointments and managing travel plans.

Some analysts believe Apple's Siri, which comes pre-loaded on iPhones and iPads, represents a growing threat to Google, the world's No. 1 search engine. The information that Siri provides on common topics such as sports scores and nearby restaurants reduces the need to visit Google's search engine, the analysts say.

Johanna Wright, Google's vice president of Search and Assist for Mobile, described Google Now as the next phase in the evolution of search, in which answers are served up without a user needing to type in a query.

The technology taps into Google's various online services, from Web search to personal Gmail email and Google Calendar entries, to deliver relevant information throughout the day in pop-up windows that Google refers to as "cards." By accessing an email with a flight itinerary, for example, Google Now can automatically remind a traveler about an upcoming trip and suggest the best time to leave for the airport based on current traffic conditions.

Unlike the Android version of Google Now, in which users can swipe the phone's homescreen to quickly access the pop-up cards, the version for Apple's iOS will only display these cards when a user has opened the Google Search app.

The smartphone has emerged as a key battleground between Google and Apple as consumers increasingly access the Web with mobile devices instead of personal computers.

In September, Apple replaced the Google Maps app that once came pre-loaded on iPhones with a new maps app that Apple created in-house. The Apple maps service contained embarrassing errors, drawing fierce criticism from consumers and reviewers and forcing Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook to offer a public apology.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/google-now-comes-iphone-challenging-apples-siri-143928576.html

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Nintendo now selling refurbished DSi XL and 3DS units for $100 and up

It's easy for us to go shopping for a refurbished Nintendo handheld at stores and auction houses, but not if we're looking for a huge bargain: small discounts and dodgy quality often make it wiser to buy new instead. Nintendo has just offered us some better reasons to scrimp and save by quietly offering both the DSi XL and 3DS through its refurb shop. The used (and occasionally bruised) systems respectively start at $100 and $130, or $30 and $40 less than they'd normally cost -- enough to justify splurging on a game or two. While the selection is currently scarce, we'll set that qualm aside when everything gets the same year-long warranty as a new unit. About the only debate left is whether or not we're looking for a dedicated game machine in the first place.

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Nintendo

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Via: Nintendo Everything, Ars Technica

Source: Nintendo

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/P8SRXJZa0Ok/

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Ryan Takes a Key Role on Immigration (WSJ)

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Bissau leader pledges election by year end

BISSAU (Reuters) - Guinea-Bissau's interim leader returned home on Sunday after weeks abroad seeking medical treatment and pledged to organize elections in his coup-prone nation before the end of the year.

President Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo refused to comment on this month's U.S. drug sting that targeted his country's top brass, accused of trafficking Latin American cocaine, but said he expected leaders to unite so donors could fund the election.

African and Western diplomats are pinning their hopes on the election drawing a line under decades of instability in the former Portuguese colony, but a U.S. sting operation that targeted the military chief sent shockwaves through the tiny nation.

"Presidential elections will take place this year," Nhamadjo told reporters after he returned from weeks of treatment in Germany for an unspecified medical problem.

"The political parties will come together to set up, as soon as possible, a unity government," he added.

The nation was thrust into its latest crisis last year when the military arrested then Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior and acting President Raimundo Pereira in the midst of an election that Gomes Junior was poised to win.

Armed Forces Chief General Antonio Indjai was briefly in power before officially ceding to Nhamadjo.

However, Indjai is still widely seen as the nation's most powerful man and was targeted by, but escaped, the U.S. sting operation that netted the country's former navy chief.

Nhamadjo refused to comment on the sting operation, which has led to authorities during his absence accusing Washington of illegally kidnapping one of the country's citizens.

"I was away from the country ... I was never briefed on this issue while I was away," he said.

Elections were due to be held in May, but in March West African leaders prolonged the mandate of the caretaker government until the end of the year.

(Reporting by Alberto Dabo; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bissau-leader-pledges-election-end-220526676.html

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