[justlurking]

This is an interesting problem: Medicare starts at age 65, but "full benefit" Social Security doesn't start until as late as age 67, depending on when you were born.

But, if you retired before age 67 and have retiree health care from your employer, most of them REQUIRE that you join Medicare at age 65, and the retiree health care plan becomes "secondary". If I understand the article, these folks (plus the ones that choose to wait as late as age 70 to start SS benefits) will bear the brunt of the increase.

I wonder if anyone has done an analysis to determine if there is an advantage to starting their Social Security benefits earlier, to avoid the premium increase? For some people, the lower SS benefit may be offset by the freezing of Medicare premiums -- especially if this problem occurs in multiple consecutive years.

[GailA]

Depends on the year you were born. If you were born in 1948, you have to be 66 to receive full SS/Medicare benefits, unless you were on SS/Medicare disability...then it just rolls over to regular SS/Medicare when you turn 66. I went through that at 66, wondered why it did not occur at 65 as was the former norm. They are shooting for age 70 or higher. Hoping more of us will die off sooner and they get to keep the money we paid in.

[oh8eleven]

if there is an advantage to starting their Social Security benefits earlier, to avoid the premium increase?
If you're not on SS or Medicare how would you even know about a future premium increase?
Another question - if straight Medicare covers about 80% of a subscriber's medical costs, why not throw in the "missing" 20% and cover it all?
And - why are some Advantage and (especially) Supplemental plans so expensive if they're only covering that missing 20%?

[TropicanaRose]

So many moving parts to the decision on when to take SS.

How do you “freeze” your Medicare premium? Start SS the same time you start Medicare, even if that is before FRA? Does starting SS at 62 freeze your Medicare premium, even though Medicare won’t start til 65?

If anyone has a link to an explanation of this I’d appreciate it.