Medicare Part B premiums won’t be reduced this year, the government has announced. After being directed by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in January to reassess this year’s $170.10 standard monthly premium — a bigger-than-expected 14.5% jump from $148.50 in 2021 — the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released a report determining that a mid-year correction is not feasible. Instead, any savings that result from lower-than-estimated spending this year will be applied to the calculation for the 2023 Part B premium. About half of the larger-than-expected 2022 premium increase, set last fall, was attributed to the potential cost of covering Aduhelm — a drug that battles Alzheimer’s disease — despite actuaries not yet knowing the particulars of how it would be covered because Medicare officials were still determining that. CMS is required to set each year’s Part B premium at 25% of the estimated costs that will be incurred by that part of the program. So in its calculation for 2022, the agency had to account for the possibility of broadly covering Aduhelm. The per-patient price tag that actuaries had used in their calculation subsequently was cut in half by manufacturer Biogen — to $28,200 annually from $56,000. Additionally, CMS officials announced in April that Medicare will only cover Aduhelm for beneficiaries who receive it as part of a clinical trial. The 2022 premium would have been set at $160.40 if the Aduhelm cost was what it is now and the determination of coverage had already occurred, the CMS report said.