Growing numbers of seniors are working longer, and delaying the start of benefits. According to a TSCL survey conducted early this year, 42 percent of seniors who are still working say they plan to delay the start of benefits until age 66 or thereafter. Those who continue to work, continue to pay Social Security, Medicare and other taxes as well. .Do you have a plan to manage aging parents, siblings, or the needs of children or grandchildren? Do family commitments require your time, attention or other resources, including finances? If something were to happen to you, how would that impact other family members? If children or grandchildren come to you asking for loans or childcare, how does that impact your retirement finances and how will you manage that? .In addition, one new cosponsor signed on to the Preventing and Reducing Improper Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures (PRIME) Act (H.R. 2305). The new cosponsor is Rep. Tim Walberg (MI-7), and the total now sits at sixty-six. If signed into law, the PRIME Act would take a number of steps to comprehensively 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. .Editor's note: While I have a pretty reliable track record on estimating the COLA, this year's inflation is far different than at any previous time in the past 26+ years. Inflation has been so volatile that I worry my probability models may not work as well as they typically do. In most years I'm pretty certain about my September estimate of the COLA for the following year. But this time all bets are off. Be patient — I'm no psychic, and stay tuned to the news! .If they are not included, we will continue to fight for them next year and each year until we are successful. .If you've received a medical bill for services that you thought were covered by your health insurance you already know what surprise medical billing is. But as a reminder, "Surprise medical billing" is a term commonly used to describe charges received by someone who has health insurance but they received care from a health care provider who is not included in their insurance coverage. This situation could arise in an emergency when the patient has no ability to select the emergency room, treating physicians, or ambulance providers. Surprise medical bills might also happen when a patient receives planned care from an in-network provider (often, a hospital or ambulatory care facility), but other treating providers brought in to participate in the patient's care are not in the same network. This can end up costing patients thousands of dollars they thought their insurance would pay. .On Tuesday, Senators on the influential Finance Committee held a hearing titled "Examining the Proposed Medicare Part B Drug Demonstration." Dr. Patrick Conway testified before the full committee on the status of the controversial demonstration program, which was proposed by CMS earlier this year and has not yet been implemented. The program will test new payment strategies for hospitals and physicians who administer prescription drugs to Medicare beneficiaries receiving outpatient care. It is a new attempt by the Obama Administration to move away from a medical system that rewards volume of care and towards one that values high-quality care. .Sources: Statement: Social Security Payments Go Paperless, Honorable Patrick P. O'Carroll, Jr., Inspector General, Social Security Administration, June 19, 2013. .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.