News

  • January 30 2021

    In context, DeSantis seemed to be making a point about the safety of flying on a plane rather than the role airplanes played in spreading the virus from place to place. .Doing this can be worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in savings in a single year, and it's surprisingly simple. Free one-on-one counseling is available from local Medicare benefits counselors like me in every area of the country, through State Health Insurance Programs (SHIP). Many of these programs operate through local area agencies on aging, senior centers, and community health centers. .At the hearings, many Committee Members were still getting up to speed on the structural and procedural aspects of the IPAB. The IPAB, which will be made up of 15 "experts" appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, will begin issuing recommendations to Congress in 2015 if Medicare spending exceeds the targets established by the Affordable Care Act. Those recommendations will be reviewed on a "fast-track" basis, and, if Congress fails to act quickly, HHS will be forced to implement them. … Continued

  • Benefit Bulletin April May 2020

    In making the 1977 changes, Congress, wanting to avoid an abrupt change, allowed persons born from 1917 through 1921 to use a special transitional benefit formula or the new 1977 formula, whichever would yield the higher of the two benefits. The transition benefit formula never delivered the promised benefit protection, however, because it did not yield a higher benefit amount. Instead, the new benefit formula most often yielded the higher amount. .The government would provide a fixed amount of money or "voucher" to purchase private coverage. Currently Medicare pays per procedure. Under this proposal the federal government would provide a fixed amount of money or "voucher," to private health plans to provide coverage. The amount of the voucher would be limited to the growth of the gross domestic product plus one percentage point. However, for the last 40 years national healthcare spending has exceeded the growth of the gross domestic product by more than two percentage points. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said that over time the vouchers would become increasingly inadequate to purchase sufficient coverage, or that seniors would face significantly higher premiums. .I'm new to Medicare. I didn't realize that Medicare doesn't cover eye or hearing exams like my former insurance at work. My income is pretty low. Where can I go to get these services? … Continued

The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) shares Senator Nelson's concerns, and we are hopeful that Congress will take action in the near future to ensure lower out-of-pocket spending for Medicare beneficiaries. In the weeks ahead, we will continue to monitor the confirmation of Congressman Price, and we post updates here in the Legislative News section of our website. .TSCL Announces Support for New Bill .Common sense suggests that the slowdown in rising Medicare costs is unlikely to last long. Medicare spending results for two main reasons: .New Co-Sponsors Added .It would: boost monthly Social Security benefits by 2 percent, improve the adequacy of the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, create a new minimum benefit set at 125 percent of the poverty line, and cut taxes for millions of beneficiaries. To cover the cost of these benefit enhancements and extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Funds for decades to come, it would also apply the payroll tax to income over 0,000 and gradually increase the payroll tax rate from 6.2 percent to 7.4 percent. .When the Great Recession hit eight-plus years ago, the focus was on the double-digit unemployment rates and the devastating impact on recent college and high school graduates. Largely ignored in the discussion were mature workers who were hit equally as hard. .TSCL is happy to hear that. However, we also know that the big drug companies are spending millions of dollars lobbying heavily against legislation in Congress that would lower drug prices. So, we remain skeptical of his intentions until we actually see a proposal or proposals to do what he claims the drug companies want to do. .A recent study by TSCL, which examines the price changes in the goods and services typically purchased by retirees, found that Social Security benefits lost 30 percent of their buying power since 2000. The loss of buying power jumped 7 percent in just one year, rising from 23 percent in 2016, to 30 percent in 201The steep one-year loss of buying power occurred as costs rose far more rapidly than the COLA and it is an early indication that the COLA for 2018 will likely be higher than usual. .The irony is that when Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) because Senate Majority Leader in 2015 he said the Senate must return to "regular order," which means getting its work done in an orderly fashion and on time.