Do you have a plan for changing health and lifestyle that may affect your income? How would you cope if you developed a chronic health condition that required expensive drugs? How would you know if you start having memory problems? Have you looked into the various types of senior housing, including those with plans that provide greater continuing long term care as you age? Have you discussed your plan or desires with family or other caregivers? ."Social Security benefits have flat - lined since 2010," says Mary Johnson, a Social Security policy analyst and author of TSCL's buying power study. "That was the first time since the annual COLA became automatic that inflation was too low for a COLA to be payable," Johnson notes. Since then, COLAs have averaged just 1.2 percent per year, less than half the 3 percent that COLAs averaged during the decade prior to 2010. .Under the rule he's considering formally proposing, Trump would order reimbursement for certain Part B drugs to be tied to what's known as the International Price Index. That would mean a price cut for many medicines, since the prices drug makers charge outside the U.S. are often set by government-run health-care systems and are generally lower. Medicare doesn't use its position as a big buyer of drugs to bargain for lower prices. .In recent years, inflation and COLAs have been virtually flat, averaging just 1.1% per year since 2010 — with no COLA at all in 2016 and just a 0.3% COLA in 201Slow growth in Social Security benefits, particularly when it continues over a period as long as 8 years, has a very significant impact on the overall amount of lifetime income that retirees can expect from Social Security. When retiree costs climb while benefits remain flat, people wind up having to dig more deeply into retirement savings (if they have any), spending more quickly than anticipated. Many people without other pensions or savings are forced into debt. About one in four low-income older Americans is dependent on programs that provide assistance with essentials like food and healthcare costs. .Where do you want to live and how will you get around? Do you plan to stay where you are, move to senior housing, or someday move in with family? Is it cheaper to rent or to buy? If you own a home, will your financial plan cover the annual maintenance and inevitable upkeep and repairs such as painting or replacing a roof? Will you have access to public transportation if you can no longer drive or afford a vehicle? Look for local workshops that review the types of housing options in your area for people over 60. .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. .When you get your new card, you may begin using it at once. But if you forget to bring it with you to your next doctor's visit your doctor's office should be able to use your old card until December 31, 2019. .In addition, the bill would help finance Part D benefits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will save Medicare billion over a decade and save beneficiaries billion in out-of-pocket costs over the same period. .Low and middle-income earners pay taxes on all of their earnings. In recent years, however, the share of total wages earned in the U.S. and subject to Social Security payroll tax has declined because the earnings of the most highly paid workers have grown rapidly. Most of the proposals to increase the taxable maximum would also raise benefits of the affected workers by counting earnings above the old cap in the benefit formula. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that eliminating the taxable maximum would extend the Social Security solvency as much as 50 years.[1]