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Legislative Update: Spending Reductions In Senior Programs Account For 25% of Additional Budget Surplus Reductions in spending on Cost-Of-Living Adjustments (COLAs), Medicare, and Medicaid have created more than one quarter of an additional $295 billion budget surplus announced by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in July of 1999. The reduced spending, an estimated $73 billion over the next decade, comes over the same period of time when the nation's health care costs are expected to double. A portion of the reduced spending comes as a consequence of changes made to Medicare and Medicaid in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. The most substantial part of the additional budget surplus, $52 billion, comes out of the pockets of Social Security recipients, military, civilian, and government retirees in the form of lower-than-expected COLAs. This is a result of a series of changes made to the way the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is calculated. This surplus was welcome news to lawmakers struggling to stay within strict spending limits set unrealistically low by the 1997 balanced budget deal. The additional surplus is also central for plans to provide a much-promised tax cut. But the news is not so welcome to seniors. TSCL frequently receives letters from members who struggle to pay for prescription drugs and day-to-day living expenses. COLAs simply are not keeping up. Recently President Clinton and Members of Congress have introduced a number of proposals and legislative initiatives that would address a number of issues to concern to seniors. The initiatives would: * Add prescription drug benefits to Medicare, or provide discounts to seniors, * Provide greater tax incentives to purchase long-term care insurance or exemptions for care provided at home, * Provide more fair COLAs for seniors by indexing them to the CPI For Elderly Consumers, the CPI-E. These are sorely needed initiatives, but it is action that counts. Nothing happens unless the measures are enacted into law. TSCL urges you to make contact with your Members of Congress now to keep the additional surplus generated from senior programs, in senior programs. Let us remind Congress and the President where a substantial portion of the additional budget surplus comes from-the pockets of their own senior constituents! This article first appeared in Volume 4, Issue 9 of "The Social Security and Medicare Advisor" newsletter (September/1999). To receive future editions of "The Advisor" in its special, free e-mail version, please click here. | ||||||||
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