I’ve been disabled for more than 20 years and been on Medicare the whole time.
(I can’t tell you the number of dumb medical receptionists who were just SOOOOOO sure I meant “Medicaid” because I wasn’t “old enough for Medicare.” No, I am disabled. Medicare is also for the disabled. See, here? Look at the card. MedicaRE. Duh.)
I can’t claim to understand any jot or tittle of how it works. However, I can report what my 2010 statement says:
Total benefits for 2010: $8,704.80
MINUS Medicare Part B premiums deducted from benefits: $1,156.80
Received by direct deposit (which I’ll grant them, comes in on time every month): $7,548.00
The total benefits number has been the same 2009, 2010, and 2011. In previous years, I usually got ten or fifteen bucks extra each January. But according to some screwball, Twilight Zone system of accounting, the cost of living has not increased since The Zero took office; ergo, we all got Zero Cost of Living Adjustments.
It’s beyond me how they justified a zero COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) two years in a row when prices have been sky-rocketing. Just ONE of the items I need on a regular basis has gone from $4 to $7 a bottle. Cripes, have the idjits in the Obambi Government SEEN the cost of GAS? Or GROCERIES?
It’s also beyond me why my Medicare premium went up when the alleged cost of living did not. I’m actually getting LESS cash this year than last year and stuff I gave up my little luxuries to afford in 2009 are not totally out of reach.
If Corporal K were not paying all the dogs’ expenses, we’d have had to give them away. To my mind, that right there is enough reason to NOT vote for the people who brought me this situation.
Democrats!
They engineered the economic collapse, forced through the legislation that has driven up energy and food costs, and have overseen every step of the 2009-to-present economic stagnation. And that’s not just mud slinging. I can prove it.
I guess I’m really stupid, because it’s ALSO beyond me why any retired or disabled person holding enough marbles to find a voting booth would vote for any Democrat in 2012, but I know they will.
polination.blog 
They exclude the cost of groceries and gasoline when they calculate the inflation rate — I guess once you exclude those things, inflation is pretty low. Although if you factored in the cost of health care, health insurance, and higher education, it would be a lot higher, so they must be excluding those things, too. What exactly do they base their inflation estimates on, anyway?
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Cost of Living Adjustment – How SS does it
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/latestCOLA.html
“The Social Security Act specifies a formula for determining each COLA. According to the formula, COLAs are based on increases in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). CPI-Ws are calculated on a monthly basis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
Okay …. I admit it. I STILL don’t know how they calculate it.
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If a Republican were president they’d change the formula to show an inflation rate that’s closer to reality.
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