Medicare Part B Premiums Rise For Most In 2018

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced Medicare Part B premiums for 2018, and the base premium stays the same as this year at $134 a month, but a lot actually changes. For 70% of Social Security recipients who have been paying an artificially low $109 a month, they’ll see a big jump to the $134 a month level. Also, many high earners—starting at $133,500 for a single--will face higher high-income surcharges.  Part B (the base and the surcharge) covers doctors’ and outpatient services.

The backdrop to the premium jump for the 70% of folks is that the Social Security Administration announced a 2% cost of living adjustment (COLA) for 2018 last month. The average benefit for a retired worker will rise by $27 a month to $1,404 in 2018. Many recipients will find most or all of their increase eaten up by the jump in the Medicare Part B premiums deducted from their monthly Social Security checks. A “hold harmless” provision (no increase in Medicare premiums can reduce a Social Security recipient’s net monthly check) kept their premiums in check before.

For folks who face high-income surcharges that are tacked on to Part B premiums, it’s a different story. They’re facing hikes for 2018 because of a 2015 Congressional budget deal, which compressed tax brackets, which forces more people to pay higher surcharges.

The graduated high-income premium surcharges for seniors kick in for singles with a modified adjusted gross income of more than $85,000 and for couples with a MAGI of more than $170,000. An individual earning more than $85,000, but less than or equal to $107,000, will pay $187.50 in total a month in 2018, including a $53.50 surcharge, the same as in 2017.

The next bracket is compressed, so individuals making $133,500 to $160,000 will now face a $214.30 monthly surcharge, up from $133.90, bringing their total premium up from $267.90 a month to $348.30 a month. That’s a 60% hike. Click here to continue reading.

Movie Review—Murder on the Orient Express

Theatrical release poster

by Peter J. O'Connell                                                                                                 

Murder on the Orient Express. Released: Nov. 2017. Runtime: 114 mins. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and thematic elements.

Sidney Lumet's 1974 film version of Agatha Christie's classic 1934 mystery novel Murder on the Orient Express proved both a popular and a critical success and touched off somewhat of a Christie boom. A number of theatrical and TV films based on her stories and characters, and even her life, followed over the next 20 years or so.

Now Kenneth Branagh directs and co-produces a new version of Murder, with himself as the lead character, Hercule Poirot, the “world's greatest detective,” as the Belgian styles himself. There's a problem with this new version, however—there's not much new about it, and what is new mostly isn't an improvement on the 1974 version. 

An example of the new but not improved material is the grossly overproduced, and irrelevant, opening sequence set in Jerusalem. Other examples are some of the choices that Branagh has made in how scenes are shot. The most blatant example of a bad choice in this regard is the filming from overhead of a key scene involving Johnny Depp's character. And no review can fail to note that one of the new things that is quite annoying is the addition of a new character of sorts: Mr. Mustache. Yes, Branagh has given Poirot a mustache that is so grotesquely large and shaped that it almost becomes a character itself in the movie—another passenger on the train. At least, one can't help fixing eyes on it during the many closeups that Branagh gives himself.

Something new that would be welcome in this version of Murder would be a twist on the story's “surprise ending,” which is actually rather well-known and hence no surprise to many moviegoers. But we don't get any such imaginative approach from screenwriter Michael Green. Nor do we get much approximating stellar performances from Murder's all-star (sort of) cast.

Johnny Depp as a shady art dealer with plenty of enemies is probably the best in the cast, but that's largely because most of the other actors are given little distinctive to do. When the Depp character is murdered while the Express is marooned in the mountains by a snow avalanche, the other characters are suspects. The main ones are the Depp character's henchmen (Derek Jacobi and Josh Gad); a morose missionary (Penelope Cruz); a white supremacist (Willem Dafoe); a Russian noblewoman (Judi Dench); an African-American doctor (Leslie Odom, Jr.); the doctor's clandestine lover, a governess (Daisy Ridley); and a femme fatale type (Michelle Pfeiffer). The point of such a cast is for each of them to have their characters make a strong individual impression but to do so economically. (As Ingrid Bergman did in the 1974 version, for which she received an Oscar.) The current cast—under this director—doesn't. 

Murder's exterior shots can be impressive. It is filmed in 65mm and beautiful color, with a mix of actual scenery, traditional special effects, and computer-generated imagery. But both the costuming and the production design of the interiors fail to convey a strong sense of period or the luxurious experience of traveling on the fabled train. 

Be that as it may, the final scene of Murder is clearly setting up for a sequel. And it has been reported that a biopic of Agatha Christie is in the works, to star either Emma Stone or Alicia Vikander.   

Bill Gates' newest mission: Curing Alzheimer's

(CNN)It's one of the holy grails of science: a cure for Alzheimer's. Currently, there is no treatment to stop the disease, let alone slow its progression. And billionaire Bill Gates thinks he will change that.

"I believe there is a solution," he told me without hesitation.

"Any type of treatment would be a huge advance from where we are today," he said, but "the long-term goal has got to be cure."

I had the chance to sit down with Gates recently to talk about his newest initiative. He sat in front of our cameras exclusively to tell me how he hopes to find a cure to a disease that now steals the memories and other cognitive functions of 47 million people around the world. 

For Gates, the fight is personal. He is investing $50 million of his own money into the Dementia Discovery Fund, a private-public research partnership focused on some of the more novel ideas about what drives the brain disease, such as looking at a brain cell's immune system. It's the first time Gates has made a commitment to a noncommunicable disease. The work done through his foundation has focused primarily on infectious diseases such as HIV, malaria and polio. Click here to continue reading.

Movie Review—Suburbicon

Theatrical release poster

by Peter J. O’Connell 

Suburbicon. Released: Oct. 2017. Runtime: 104 mins. MPAA Rating: R for violence, language, and some sexuality.

George Clooney is a fine actor, including in four films made by the Coen brothers. He also has directed six films, several quite good. And he is a noted advocate for liberal causes. Now we have Suburbicon. Clooney doesn’t appear in this film, but he has directed it himself, co-written it with the Coen brothers and Grant Heslov, and co-produced it.

The movie is a dramedy attempting to weave together three elements: film noir, satirical/semi-surrealistic comedy, and social justice concerns. The first two of these elements are characteristics of Coen brothers’ films. The last reflects Clooney’s own interests. Unfortunately, the attempt to interweave the three elements fails. At best they are only loosely looped together. In fact, we might say that the whole movie is rather loopy. Its exaggerated portrayal of stereotypical characters and its stilted dialogue may, perhaps, be an attempt to “make things clear by overstating,” but that approach here is off-putting rather than clarifying.

The eponymous setting of the movie is a Levittown-like community in 1959. The family-friendly environment in Suburbicon, however, turns distinctly unfriendly when the town’s first blacks—the Mayers family—move in and are subject to violent harassment by mobs of white residents. The family’s only friend is Nicky (Noah Jupe), the young son of Gardner (Matt Damon) and Rose Lodge (Julianne Moore) next-door neighbors of the Mayers family. Nicky plays with young Andy Mayers (Tony Espinosa), despite the ordeal being undergone by Mr. and Mrs. Mayers (Leith M. Burke and Karimah Westbrook).

While Suburbicon’s racist white residents feel invaded by the peaceable black family, the Lodge “lodge” in the suburban “Garden of Eden” undergoes a seeming home invasion by two violent thugs, who kill Rose. Margaret, Rose’s twin sister (also played by Julianne Moore, natch), then moves in with Nicky and Gardner, with whom she has sex, while debt-ridden Gardner attempts to collect an insurance policy on Rose’s life. He also attempts to fend off the demands of the ostensible home invaders (Alex Hassell and Glenn Fleshler) for payment. You see, Gardner actually hired the two to kill Rose. Moreover, Gardner and Margaret also have to deal with a swarmily assertive insurance investigator (Oscar Isaac), who has his own agenda.

In the meantime, poor Nicky, feeling that things are going out of control but not knowing why, starts to seclude himself in his room. Eventually, as events reach a climax in a night of horrendous violence, Nicky begins to see his own father and aunt inside the home as posing an even greater danger to him than the two criminals from outside.

As mentioned earlier, the racist incidents and what’s going on with the Lodges never really mesh. Damon and Moore, usually A-list thesps, rate only a C here. Their attempts to portray their cartoonish characters fall flat. Glenn Fleshler and Oscar Isaac are much better but can’t save the film. Noah Jupe as Nicky is good, but certain aspects of his characterization may make Connecticut audience members somewhat uneasy by their slight resemblance to behavior of Newtown’s Adam Lanza.

Overall, Suburbicon attempts to depict the iconic American dream of the suburbs as, in effect, a nightmarish “con.” Have we seen this concept before? We sure have—in Blue Velvet (1986) and Pleasantville (1998) and American Beauty (1999) and Revolutionary Road (2008), just to name a few out of a multitude. Yo, Hollywood, give it a break! (Remember, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.)

“Footnote” to the Film: The racist violence directed at the black family may seem one of the most exaggerated aspects of Suburbicon. Sad to say, it is one of the least. The actual historical incident of horrendous harassment reflected in the film occurred in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in 1957.