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    On Thursday, TSCL held its first ever town hall meeting with great success in North Carolina's 11th Congressional District. TSCL would like to thank Congressional Candidate Mark Meadows for taking time out of his busy schedule to address concerned members and supporters. .Following the meeting at the White House, Congressman Welch told reporters: "It simply makes no sense for Medicare to buy wholesale and pay retail prices. As a businessman, President Trump understands that. I hope he helps us enact our legislation to provide urgently needed relief to consumers and taxpayers." In addition, Congressman Cummings said, "We had a productive meeting today … The President committed to reviewing our proposal, and he seemed enthusiastic about the idea." .For information about town hall meetings near you in the days ahead, call the local offices of your elected officials. For contact information, click HERE. … Continued

  • Congressional Corner By Representative Fred Upton Mi 6

    Using statistical data from the Social Security Administration, TSCL estimates about 88 percent of Social Security beneficiaries have received benefits during the 2009 – 2015 period and have been impacted the hardest. "With 64 percent of older Americans depending on Social Security for over half of their income, going without a COLA is a loss of income that most beneficiaries simply can't be expected to bear," Cates says. Spiking medical costs are causing retirees to go into debt, and run through their savings," he adds. .In fact, when the COLA increases since 2000 are compared with the typical cost increases that retirees experienced over the same period, Social Security benefits have lost 34% of their buying power. COLAs increased benefits a total of 46 percent, while typical senior expenses have jumped 96.3 percent between 2000 through the first week of 201To put it in perspective, for every 0 worth of groceries a retiree household could afford in 2000, they can only buy worth today. .Although many older Americans continue to face challenges as they approach retirement, Congress can and should do more to ensure that no retiring American needs to worry about making ends meet. … Continued

"Taxpayers and patients will pay more for drugs and medical supplies," a group of more than 250 economists warned in a letter to the White House earlier this year. .And third, one new cosponsor – Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) – signed on to the Social Security 2100 Act (S. 2671), bringing the cosponsor total to two. If adopted, S. 2671 would comprehensively strengthen and reform the Social Security program by basing COLAs on the CPI-E, increasing monthly benefits by 2%, creating a new Special Minimum Benefit equal to 125% of the poverty line, providing a tax cut to Social Security beneficiaries, applying the payroll tax to annual income over 0,000, and gradually increasing the payroll tax rate by 0.25%. .Congress did not receive any automatic pay adjustment this year. With so many Americans (including seniors) suffering from long-term financial set backs, and so many workers out of jobs, lawmakers wisely opted to forego a raise. They last received a pay raise in January 200At the time their salary was increased 2.8% to 4,000 from 9,300. While the recession was taking a bite out of Americans' income, the pay of Members of Congress grew by ,800 from the time the recession began at the end of December 2007 through 2009, according to the Congressional Research Service. Over the decade 2000 through 2009, Congress gave themselves a total of 9 pay hikes, raising their salaries a total of ,300 from 6,700 in 1999 to the 4,000 that they receive in 201Legislation passed in 1989 established the current formula used to automatically adjust the Congressional pay increase that they refer to as a "cost-of-living adjustment" (COLA). .Depending on health, and type of Medigap coverage, seniors would get hit with up to ,100 per year in new costs that were previously covered by their health plan. .Sen. Bernard Sanders (VT) introduced S. 500 on March 7, 201It has since been referred to the Committee on Finance. .Sources: "Home Is Where The Money Is For Medicare Advantage Plans," Fred Schulte, Center For Public Integrity, June 10, 201"Medicare Advantage 2016 Data Spotlight: Overview of Plan Changes," Kaiser Family Foundation, December 2012015 Medicare Trustees Report, July 22, 2015. .In addition, one new cosponsor signed on to the Preventing and Reducing Improper Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures (PRIME) Act (H.R. 2305). The new cosponsor is Rep. Tim Walberg (MI-7), and the total now sits at sixty-six. If signed into law, the PRIME Act would take a number of steps to comprehensively prevent fraud, waste, and abuse within the two programs – a problem that TSCL believes must be addressed in order to ensure that scarce program dollars are being spent properly. .Now, the government of Canada is banning drug manufacturers and distributors from shipping any Canadian drugs that might be at risk of shortage to the United States. .Many of our nation's seniors live on fixed incomes and struggle to afford everyday expenses. Sadly, a large number of these individuals are also disabled. There are several existing programs that support the most vulnerable among us, but the number of agencies, applications, reporting requirements and additional obstacles they must tackle to access these funds make it unnecessarily difficult for them to receive the benefits they desperately need and deserve.