TSCL supports several bills that would lead to lower prices for Medicare Part D beneficiaries, and we will continue to seek out innovative solutions that would increase access to lifesaving prescription drugs. The goal remains to ensure safe and affordable medicines for older Americans. .In April, lawmakers on the Republican Study Committee proposed a budget blueprint that would have reformed the Medicare program and cut Social Security benefits by adopting the "chained" CPI, eliminating the COLA for some seniors, and raising the eligibility age. Did you support this budget blueprint, and if so, why? .Most people who spend the night in the hospital would say they have been an inpatient. But over the past six years, rapidly growing numbers of Medicare beneficiaries have learned that they were never admitted as an inpatient — even though they have stayed in a hospital bed, received treatment, diagnostic tests, and drugs. .Put your mother's apartment on the market and work to sell it. This means giving it a thorough cleaning, a fresh coat of paint if needed, and minor repairs. .This week, HHS announced several important numbers that will affect Social Security and Medicare benefits beginning in January. On Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that the Medicare Part B monthly premium will be left unchanged in 2014, and it will be set at 4.90. The Part B deductible will also be left unchanged, and it will remain at CMS officials noted on Monday that the past five years have been among the slowest-growing for Part B premiums in the Medicare program's history. .Key Bill Gains Cosponsor .The Senior Citizens League believes that expanding "means testing" to Part D and freezing the income levels through 2019 is a backdoor benefit cut that will eventually affect even middle-income seniors. The chief reason is that as the economy grows over the next decade, the frozen income thresholds will not increase in-kind, subjecting many more seniors to the "means test." The Senior Citizens League estimates that given different inflation scenarios, individual seniors who made between ,000 and ,000 in 2010 could be subjected to the "means test" in 2019, because of the frozen income thresholds. In addition, if the income thresholds for the "means test" had been allowed to increase, (the case before the PPACA was signed into law), we estimate that they would have increased to an amount between 0,500 to 1,800 in 2019. .There's a heated debate over the extent to which illegal immigrant workers obtain Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Recently the Social Security Office of Inspector General reported that improper Social Security Disability (SSDI) payments (due to errors, fraud and abuse) totaled .5 billion in fiscal year 2009 while improper SSI payments totaled billion. But just how much of that money is going to illegal immigrants seems to be anybody's guess. .Higher-income beneficiaries. People with modified gross incomes above ,000 (individuals) or 0,000 (couples) in 2017 are required to pay higher Part B premiums. The amount they pay varies depending on income. According to Medicare Trustees, their premium increases will range from to per month.