A new Medicare cost-saving rule that was launched late in 2020 will cut payments to hospitals for some surgical procedures and could potentially raise costs for Medicare recipients. According to an article by Susan Jaffe, of Kaiser Health News, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has for years classified 1,740 surgeries and other services as "so risky" for older adults that Medicare would pay for them only when people were admitted to the hospital as inpatients. But under the new rule, CMS is beginning to phase out that requirement. By the end of 2023, these "inpatient only services" which includes complicated procedures such as heart and brain operations, is scheduled to be gone. .The Senior Citizens League supports legislation that would strengthen the COLA and better protect the buying power of Social Security recipients. To learn more, visit . .Low and middle-income earners pay taxes on all of their earnings. In recent years, however, the share of total wages earned in the U.S. and subject to Social Security payroll tax has declined because the earnings of the most highly paid workers have grown rapidly. Most of the proposals to increase the taxable maximum would also raise benefits of the affected workers by counting earnings above the old cap in the benefit formula. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that eliminating the taxable maximum would extend the Social Security solvency as much as 50 years.[1] .Finally, two new cosponsors signed on to the Preventing and Reducing Improper Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures (PRIME) Act (H.R. 2305) this week, bringing the total up to sixty-five. The new cosponsors are Reps. Tom Cotton (AR-4) and Matt Cartwright (PA-17). If signed into law, the PRIME Act would take a number of steps to comprehensively prevent fraud, waste, and abuse within Medicare and Medicaid – a problem that TSCL believes must be addressed in order to ensure that scarce program dollars are being spent properly. .The following Members of Congress, among many others, will be holding town hall meetings this week: Sen. Michael Crapo (ID), Sen. Jerry Moran (KS), Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX-4), Rep. Gus Bilirakis (FL-12), Rep. Bradley Byrne (AL-1), Rep. Tom Cole (OK-4), Rep. Tom Emmer (MN-6), Rep. Tom Graves (GA-14), Rep. Doug LaMalfa (CA-1), Rep. Thomas Massie (KY-4), Rep. Susan Brooks (IN-5), and Rep. Robert Pittenger (NC-9). ."If more retired taxpayers aren't paying taxes on their Social Security benefits, that's good news for their tax liability, but would also mean their adjusted gross income was lower than in 2019," says Johnson. "And that could mean those households might be living too close for comfort to the federal poverty level," she adds. .Specialty-tier drugs are defined by Medicare, as those that cost more than 0 per month in 2019, and include drugs used to treat cancer, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis (MS), and rheumatoid arthritis. Even when Part D enrollees reach the Medicare Part D catastrophic coverage phase, when co-insurance drops to 5%, beneficiaries who take these drugs can continue to face thousands of dollars in annual out-of-pocket costs, according to the Kaiser study. The study found that annual out-of-pocket costs for specialty drugs in 2019 are expected to average ,994 across the 28 specialty-tier drugs that are covered by drug plans. .Third, Senator Casey's BENES Act (S. 1909) gained one new cosponsor in Senator Susan Collins (ME), bringing the cosponsor total to two in the Senate. If signed into law, S.1909 would simplify the Medicare enrollment process and help prepare those approaching Medicare eligibility by educating them about the program's benefits. .Be suspicious of products that claim to treat a wide range of diseases.