There are immediate fixed annuities — the amount of the monthly payment does not change, and immediate variable annuities in which the monthly income is adjusted to the rate of return on stocks, bonds and cash investments held by the annuity. .There are new federal rules that require hospitals to post their pricing information online in order to give patients the information they need to make decisions about their health care. But it turns out that some large hospital systems have been using codes that prevent that information from appearing in online search results. .When a zero COLA was announced for 2016, the Medicare Trustees projected that the Part B premium and deductible amounts would increase by an unprecedented 52 percent between 2015 and 2016 — from 4.90 to 9.30 per month.[7] Passage of The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, however resulted in reducing the increase in Part B premiums from 9.30 per month to 1.80 per month, which was still an extremely high 16.1 percent increase. The premium included a repayment amount that was added to monthly premiums of all beneficiaries in future years to recover over time the cost of the reduced premium rate in 2016.[8] .In addition, three new cosponsors signed on to the Preventing and Reducing Improper Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures (PRIME) Act (S. 1123 and H.R. 2305) this week, bringing the total up to twenty-four in the Senate and thirty-four in the House. If signed into law, the comprehensive bill would take a number of steps to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse within the two programs – a problem that TSCL believes must be addressed in order to ensure that scarce program dollars are being spent properly. The new cosponsors are Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (NH-1), and Rep. Jackie Speier (CA-14). .Super Committee Running out of Time .The Social Security Trustees further estimate that .9 billion in revenues in 2020 would come from the taxation of Social Security benefits. "Yet those revenues are also likely to be lower, impacted by both large numbers of older Americans who lost income from jobs, as well as from lower distributions from retirement accounts that have lost value from last year," Johnson notes. Under the CARES Act, retirees are allowed to completely waive required minimum distributions for 2020 from retirement accounts. .Although Congress has often enacted "clean bill" debt limit increases, and may do so again, lawmakers have also paid for increases with other types of changes, including changes to Social Security and Medicare. In a 2015 debt limit deal, Congress ended a benefit claiming option that was one of the few ways married couples could maximize their benefits. The change affected some people who were already 62 and entitled to benefits. It cost those affected, thousands in Social Security income that they were depending on getting. .Direct federally funded community health centers to pass discounts they now get for insulin and EpiPens directly to low-income patients. .Use a consumer price index that better reflects the costs of retirees — the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E).