Shelve any plans for the extra Social Security payments

From the WSJ - but you can find it in other places, I am sure:

While the final figure on the premium increase won’t be announced immediately—the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year released it in November—the 2% bump is likely to result in higher premiums for some 70% of Medicare beneficiaries.

The reason is a provision of the Social Security Act called hold-harmless. It prevents Medicare from passing along any premium increase greater than the dollar increase in Social Security payments to the estimated 70% of beneficiaries who typically qualify for hold-harmless treatment.

Because the cost-of-living adjustment has been low for the past two years, Medicare has been forced to spread much of the projected increase in its costs across the remaining 30%—a group that includes those who pay higher premiums because of their higher incomes, those who are new to Medicare, and those who receive Medicare but have deferred or aren’t eligible for Social Security benefits. That 30% has seen its base premium rise from $104.90 in 2015 to $134 in 2017, even as premiums for the rest increased less than $5, on average.

With the larger adjustment in 2018, Medicare can spread its costs across a much larger group of beneficiaries. This summer, Medicare’s trustees projected a standard premium of $134 in 2018.

If that projection holds, the 30% of Medicare beneficiaries who are already paying $134 a month won’t see any increase. But the remaining 70% are likely to pay significantly more. And for the average Social Security recipient, $25 of the average $27.38 increase in Social Security would go to covering the rise in Medicare.

If the premium increases by as much as the Medicare trustees forecast, “for a lot of people that could effectively mean they won’t see much of that Social Security benefit increase,” said Juliette Cubanski, associate director of the program on Medicare policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation

https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-security-benefits-expected-to-get-2-boost-in-2018-1507899667