Senior citizens and the disabled will now pay a monthly premium of $88.50 for doctor's visits and other services, starting January, 2006.
The fee was raised by $10.30, or 13.2 percent, which was close to analysts estimates.
However, the Bush Administration has been in full swing promoting their new drug plan initiative;
"Next year, people on Medicare will be getting much more in benefits than they had previously received," says Herb Kuhn, director of the Center for Medicare Management, a subsidiary of the Health and Human Services Department.
One supporter of the premium increase is the American Medical Association (AMA), which, earlier this year, claimed that conditions once requiring hospitalization are now routinely treated in a physician's office at a lower cost to the government and patients.
"Americans are living longer than ever, more are entering Medicare, and chronic disease continues to increase, which naturally leads to an increased need for physician services," Dr. James Rohack, a member of the AMA Board of Trustees, says.
