The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently began a review of all pending immigration deportation cases with the goal of dismissing those of illegal immigrants with no criminal records. TSCL is concerned that the policy, which would scale back deportations of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, could potentially add hundreds of billions in new costs to the growing deficit problems of Social Security, SSI, Medicare and Medicaid. .How much are you over-paying for your prescription drugs? The only way to find out is to do a drug plan comparison based on all the drugs you take. This is the time of year you can make changes during the Medicare Open Enrollment period, which runs through the month of November and ends December 7th. Give the Medicare Drug Plan Finder a try. You can get free one-on-one counseling by contacting your local Area on Aging, State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) or senior centers and ask for help comparing Medicare drug plans. .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] .Sources: "Medicare Beneficiaries Sue US Over Hospital Stays," David Morgan, Reuters, November 3, 2011. .By way of a quick explanation, except for special circumstances, any legislation that goes through Congress has to start in the committee of jurisdiction, meaning the committee that deals with legislation pertaining to a specific subject. In the case of prescription drug legislation, those committees are Finance, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Appropriations. That's one of the reasons passing this legislation is so complicated. .The fraudsters enlist unscrupulous doctors to approve the test and the doctor receives a kick back from the recruiting company for each prescription. Medicare receives a bill that can range from ,000 to ,000. Victims have later reported that they did not even know the doctor who prescribed the test. Law officials warn that health fairs, senior centers and even church events are magnets for the scam, where recruiters take cheek swabs for genetic testing and collect Medicare numbers. .The state of Virginia, however, offers retirees a chance to retain certain parts of coverage but "opt out" of others. If Paula "opted out" of Part D drug coverage, for example, and took medical, dental, and vision coverage alone, she would pay 6 per month. The portion of the premium for the drug coverage through the state of Virginia was a whopping 4 per month. .Second, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-8) also signed on to the CPI for Seniors Act (H.R. 2016), bringing the total up to six cosponsors. If adopted, this bill would require the Bureau of Labor Statistics to create and publish a new inflation index specifically for seniors so that lawmakers can better understand the price increases older Americans are experiencing. .Key Bill Gains New Cosponsors