[Beagle8U]

Seniors still make out better if they get COLA raises every year that cover the true cost of inflation.

Whatever it goes up will be rolled in to what the next cola % is based on. Just like savings with compounded interest.

[RDasher]

That is not how the COLA's work. They are based on the CPI-W and are not affected by what Medicare premiums are doing. So if in the 3rd Qtr 2011 the CPI-W exceeds the value from 3rd Qtr 2009 by 2.4 percent that is what the Social Security increase will be. Based on the increases already logged by the Medicare premiums, a 2.4 percent SS increase will completely absorb the COLA in 2012, for a net increase over three years of zero dollars. If the COLA were higher than that the net increase would be the actual increase-2.4 percent.

Year	CPI-W	Calc COLA	Actual COLA	Effective COLA after Medicare Premium
2008	203.596	-	-	-
2009	215.495	5.8%	5.8%	5.8%
2010	211.001	-2.1%	0%	0%
2011	214.136	-0.6%	0%	0%
2012	220.560*	2.4%	2.4%	0.01%

* = estimate