TSCL agrees that the IPAB should be repealed before it is triggered to begin making cost-cutting recommendations to Congress. Even though the Affordable Care Act forbids the board from "rationing" care, cutting Medicare benefits, or increasing premiums, TSCL is concerned that cuts to providers could result in increased costs for beneficiaries or decreased access to quality medical care. .Four cosponsors signed on to the Social Security Fairness Act this week. Two Representatives – Ben Chandler (KY-6) and Mike Quigley (IL-5) – signed on to Rep. Buck McKeon's H.R. 1332, and two Senators – Sherrod Brown (OH) and Frank Lautenberg (NJ) – signed on to Sen. John Kerry's S. 20The cosponsor totals for these bills are up to 149 and 9, respectively. .Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. .2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine, like Johnson & Johnson's Janssen vaccine .The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would eliminate many important tax deductions that older Americans rely on to reduce their taxable retirement income and preserve their savings. Those include deductions for medical expenses, which can be considerable for retirees. The bill also eliminates the deduction for state and local income taxes, casualty loss expenses, such as fire, wind damage and theft, and imposes new limits for the mortgage interest deduction. "The loss of these exemptions would leave older Americans paying taxes on more retirement income and higher tax bills," Johnson says. .Social Security benefits have lost 30 percent of buying power since 2000. These are the findings of an annual TSCL study that examines the adequacy of Social Security benefits in keeping up with the rising costs typically experienced by adults age 65 and up. .GOP offers Super-Committee concession while seniors see increased poverty levels. .The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation have boosted previous estimates and now say that switching to the chained consumer price index (C-CPI) will cut Social Security and other federal retirement benefits by 8 billion and increase taxes by 2 billion over the next 10 years. The loss to beneficiaries would compound over time and grows deeper each year as illustrated in the following chart. As seniors grow older and more likely to develop costly health conditions, their Social Security benefits would become less adequate to cover rising costs more quickly. .TSCL is continuing to meet with Members of Congress to ask for their support and passage of "The Notch Fairness Act" which was recently re-introduced in the U.S. House by Representative Mike McIntyre (D-NC), and in the Senate by Senator David Vitter (R-LA). The legislation, seeks to correct a disparity in benefits caused the last time Congress overhauled the Social Security benefit formula in 1977.