The proposed funding increase into Medicaid's Home and Community Based Services program has two goals: reducing waiting lists for support for older and disabled Americans who want to stay in their homes rather than go into assisted living facilities or other institutions, and raising pay for home health care's largely female, minority workforce. .Starting a new medication can sometimes take you by surprise when drug plans don't cover the drug or charge higher co-pays than you can afford. If you're having trouble covering the cost of your medicine, here are some things to try: .Give family recipe or ethnic specialty cooking lessons. As a child I learned how to make Pennsylvania German egg noodles from scratch from my grandmother. These were a highly treasured holiday gifts. My arms still ache remembering how long I had to roll the dough to get those noodles thin enough for my grandmother! Give out an invitation to special grandchildren or friends for lessons in making favorite traditional foods from scratch. .Chairman Larson also mentioned the Know Your Social Security Act and heralded it as a great bill. But it hasn't been reintroduced. Also, he did not mention his own bill, the Social Security 2100 Act, which he introduced in the previous Congress but has not done so in this Congress. .The Earnings Suspense File represents a huge growing potential liability to the Social Security program. Currently the file holds more than 295.5 million wage reports worth more than 5 billion. Wages are used to determine entitlement to Social Security benefits. Under current law when a worker is found eligible for Social Security, all earnings that can be proven are used to determine entitlement, even for jobs worked without legal authorization. .This week, lawmakers in the House and Senate adjourned for a week-long holiday recess. They are expected to return to Washington on Tuesday, June 5th. In the meantime, many Members of Congress will be attending local events or hosting town hall meetings in their home states and districts. .Here's something hard to believe, but true. Our government is paying Social Security benefits to thousands of Mexicans who don't live in this country, or were never entitled to benefits based on their own work record. A new report from the Social Security Office of Inspector General details the growing problem of thousands of Mexicans who routinely visit the United States once a month to establish a claim to Social Security benefits. .Shoring up the Medicare Part A Trust Fund will be more difficult. Simply cutting payments to hospitals would not be in the best interests of patients or hospitals, because many medical centers are already faltering financially. .In addition, eleven 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 seventeen in the Senate and nineteen in the House. If signed into law, the bill would take a number of steps to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse within the two programs. It would enact stronger penalties, curb mistaken payments, phase out the "pay and chase" method, reduce physician identity theft, and improve data-sharing, among other things. The new cosponsors are Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Mike Johanns (NE), and Reps. Tim Griffin (AR-2), Diane Black (TN-6), Tammy Duckworth (IL-8), Ed Whitfield (KY-1), Reid Ribble (WI-8), Steve Womack (AR-3), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Tom Latham (IA-3), and Markwayne Mullin (OK-2).