Insurance for Old Age: Are Annuities A Good Idea? .The age at which you start receiving Social Security benefits. .The decision on when to start benefits is complicated and you should get counseling. The Social Security Administration website has a great deal of information on survivor's benefits at www.socialsecurity.gov as well as contact numbers to reach counselors. For more information about working after starting benefits see How Work Affects Your Benefits Publication Number 05-10069. .Using Generic Drugs Could Save Billions of Dollars .Recently a group of Medicare patients and their families sued the Obama Administration, saying they were deprived of coverage because the policy allows hospitals to avoid admitting seniors with chronic ailments as inpatients. The plaintiffs charged that the observation services policy, which is intended to apply to short stays of no more than 24 to 48 hours, is instead being used to keep Medicare patients on outpatient status for longer stays, including some lasting up to a week. As a result, the seniors incurred medical charges as high as ,000 for skilled nursing care, drugs and other costs that Medicare Part B does not cover. Inpatient stays are covered under Medicare Part A, and all of ,156 deductible and most, if not all, of the co-insurance is covered by Medigap supplements. .Background Information: Once Congress returns from the August recess, they will only have until September 30th to raise the debt ceiling and prevent the government from shutting down. In the past, government shutdowns have meant a delay in payments for Social Security benefits, causing unnecessary fiscal hardship for many seniors. Question: What are you doing to ensure the government avoids defaulting on the federal debt? .In April, lawmakers on the Republican Study Committee proposed a budget blueprint that would reform 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 dramatic budget blueprint, and if so, why? .Increasing the payroll tax rate. Social Security is currently financed by a 12.4 percent payroll tax, split evenly between employers and employees. Gradually increasing the tax rate to 14.4 percent – just one percent more for both workers and employers – would extend the solvency of the Social Security program for decades to come and would amount to just an extra 50 cents per week for the average worker. .In his ruling the California judge admonished the federal government for skipping a key step in the rulemaking process and called the government's reasons for doing so "contrived."