Because of the huge demand various brands of sanitizers started appearing in stores that we had not seen before. Then we were alerted that some of those that were made in Mexico contained methanol, a form of alcohol that's poisonous to humans, and we should not use them. .This sounds similar to the current Medicare Advantage system except for one big difference — the Health and Human Services secretary would be given authority to set beneficiary cost-sharing "based on evidence of the value of services." Under this criterion, who do you think would be more likely to get the best coverage for expensive services like CT scans that can cost ,000 — an 84-year-old, or a 43-year-old mother with two children? Finally, the recommendation would require insurers to pay a surcharge on the Medigap policies that they offer to beneficiaries. This proposal is not new. .However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) refused to bring the bill up in the Senate for debate or a vote. As a result, Congressional leaders have been struggling over the past few weeks to come up with legislation to deal with those issues to help those Americans who have been hurt so badly by the virus and the horrible economy that has resulted. .What are the Notch Reform bills that are in the current Congress? .This week, The Senior Citizens League was pleased to see support grow for three key bills. .In the days and weeks ahead, The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) will closely monitor the movement of S. Con. Res. 3 since a repeal of the Affordable Care Act will impact older Americans in several ways. For instance, progress that has been made to close the Medicare Part D prescription drug "doughnut hole" will be reversed, and the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund that finances Medicare Part A will lose a critical stream of funding created by the law. Throughout the 115th Congress, TSCL's legislative team will continue to advocate on Capitol Hill for legislation that would reduce any negative impacts on the Medicare program. .Do COLAs overpay seniors? Ask TSCL Chairman, Larry Hyland. "The idea is hogwash," he says. "There's simply no evidence that the CPI has overpaid the people who depend on those COLAs to protect the buying power of their benefits. The Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) that surveys the market basket more typical of the majority of Social Security recipients, has shown a significantly greater rise over the CPI used to calculate COLAs through 201The CPI-E would provide a more accurate, and adequate COLA, one more in line with the costs experienced by seniors," Hyland says. .Incredibly, to count as poor under the official poverty measure, your income must fall below a threshold, which is based on subsistence level food costs in 195When adopted in 1963, the poverty threshold was defined as three times the "subsistence food budget" for a family of a given size. Unlike other government measures, like the consumer price index, which undergoes continual changes to methodology, the official poverty measure has never changed, other than annual adjustments for inflation. .What is likely to happen if the test is not done?