Latest / Best of: Features / Trump announces $90 payments for seniors on Medicare ahead of midterm elections for premium costs

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Trump announces $90 payments for seniors on Medicare ahead of midterm elections for premium costs · Best of: Features

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  Trump announces ninety doll payments for seniors on Medicare ahead of midterm
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  elections for premium costs. This
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  article is being read by an automated voice generated by Everlett. President
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  Donald Trump is promising more payments to voters just ahead of the
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  november third midterm elections, this time to more than twenty million seniors,
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  giving them ninety dollars each to help pay for Medicare premiums. The
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  announcement, made late Friday night by Trump on social media, comes after
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  the President last month said about one million people would get rebate
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  checks of five hundred dollars for Affordable Care Act premiums. He has
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  also promised on the campaign trail to send every American adult five
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  thousand dollars if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in
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  the midterm elections. That pledge, which would require approval from Congress, would
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  likely cost more than one trillion dollars, adding to the deficit and
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  worsening inflation. Trump highlighted his 5,000 promise at a rally in Vandalia,
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  Ohio on Saturday night, and told supporters that 70,000 families in the
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  state would receive the ACA rebates within the next couple of days.
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  He also reminded voters about the 1,776 payments to military members announced
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  in December, though he mused that they should have been timed better.
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  Maybe I should have waited a year, he said. To be honest,
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  I said that. Should I wait for before the election? Polls show
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  Americans increasingly blame Trump for the high cost of gasoline and groceries,
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  with just 17 approving of his handling of inflation. Trump has sought
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  to shrug off concerns about affordability, saying the economy is booming. The
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  White House said. The ninety dollars payments for seniors will come from
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  the Medicare Improvement Fund, established by Congress in two thousand eight as
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  flexible funding to improve program operations and payments to health care providers.
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  Medicare Part B enrollees can expect to receive a one time payment
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  in October, either through direct deposit or by check, the White House
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  said. Total monthly costs for the program, which covers costs like doctors
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  visits, ambulance services, and lab tests, start around two hundred dollars and
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  vary with income. To be eligible, seniors must be living in the
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  US and not be already receiving premium assistance from Medicare or paying
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  adjusted monthly premiums based on income, according to the Centers for Medicare
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  and Medicaid Services. Seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage, a private plan alternative
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  to traditional Medicare coverage, are not eligible for the payment. More than
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  half of eligible Medicare beneficiaries have Medicare advantage, according to healthcare research
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  nonprofit KFF. Previous administrations have not used the Medicare Improvement Fund in
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  this way, although Congress has periodically taken out money from the fund
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  to pay for other priorities, said Larry Levitt, KFF's Executive Vice President
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  for Health Policy. For example, twenty point seven four billion dollars was
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  used for the creation of the Affordable Care Act in twenty ten.
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  The Medicare Improvement Fund language is quite broad and gives substantial discretion
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  to the administration, Levitt said.