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  • H R 456 Consumer Price Index For Elderly Consumers Cpi E Act Feed

    Require new deductibles and cost-sharing while limiting what Medigap plans could cover. Because Medicare doesn't cover all of the costs, seniors purchase supplemental coverage, known as "Medigap," to cover deductibles, and co-insurance. A proposal from President Obama's Fiscal Commission would impose a new deductible of 0 and new cost-sharing. Then, it would restrict what Medigap plans could cover, adding up to ,000 in new out-of-pocket costs that the more comprehensive Medigap plans cover now. .Despite tightening the law, Congress did not fix a policy loophole that would be inadvertently triggered with the passage of comprehensive immigration reform legislation. When determining entitlement for insured status, and when calculating the initial retirement benefit, the Social Security Administration (SSA) uses all reported earnings from covered employment in the United States, even if the earnings were from illegal or "unauthorized" work. (2) .Voting this way is a temporary answer to reduce health concerns raised by dozens of lawmakers. Several lawmakers have disease and dozens of others placed themselves in self-quarantine after exposure to someone who was infected. The sister of California Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) died because of an infection. … Continued

  • Notch Legislation Introduced In The 110th Congress Feed

    The COLA also doesn't reflect cost increases in Medicare premiums and other rapidly growing Medicare costs. Research for The Senior Citizens League has found that Medicare Part B premiums are one of the fastest growing costs in retirement. Medicare Part B premiums, which are automatically deducted from Social Security checks, often consume most, or even all, of the COLA increase. .The plan would reform the tax code by consolidating the six existing brackets into three, and by setting the corporate tax rate at an even 28 percent. It would also make some major modifications to Medicare, including a repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate for physician payments, and a strengthening of the controversial Independent Payment Advisory Board. The proposal also includes a plan to restore Social Security to 75-year solvency by raising the retirement age, increasing the taxable maximum wage cap, and adopting a Chained Consumer Price Index, among other things. .The situation can be potentially dangerous for Medicare beneficiaries and their families. If you are approached or receive a call by someone offering money, free services, free groceries, free transportation or TVs for your Medicare number, say no. If you suspect fraud, Medicare has an area on its website where you can report fraud. … Continued

Medicare first began offering beneficiaries the chance to enroll in private Medicare HMOs' in the mid 1980's. That program was absorbed and expanded under the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, creating Medicare+Choice. To cut federal spending on Medicare, the Balanced Budget Act set payments to the private plans at 5% below the fee-for-service rates of traditional Medicare. But by 1999, Medicare+Choice plans were not renewing their contracts with Medicare and there was a widespread exodus, leaving more than 2 million seniors scrambling to find other coverage. .Traveling through the beautiful farmlands of early primary states, you can find the self-proclaimed champions of socialized medicine amid the flashes of cameras on the campaign trail. If you keep driving through, you'll see the harsh reality beyond presidential candidate photo-ops. You'll see the more than 100 rural hospitals that have closed in the United States since 2010, including two in my district in the last year alone. .People frequently say they are "not ready" to move into a senior living facility, but the thoughtful solo adults who cherish their independence might be convinced that, by making decisions ahead of time when they are still healthy, is how one preserves that autonomy. Waiting until a health crisis could mean winding up where someone else decides she or he needs to be. .Under current law, the Medicare program is prohibited from negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies despite the fact that other federal health programs are required to do so. As a result, older Americans enrolled in Part D often pay much higher prices than other American consumers for their prescription drugs. If adopted, this bill would lead to billions of dollars in savings for the Medicare program, and it would immediately reduce prescription drug prices for Medicare Part D beneficiaries. .The aggressive collection efforts resulted from a one-line change tucked into the 2008 Farm Bill lifting the statute of limitations. The U.S. Treasury seized a reported .9 billion in tax refunds this year alone — million of that was for debts more than 10 years old. The Social Security Administration says that 400,000 taxpayers collectively owe 4 million in debts that are more than 10 years old. .Contact Social Security and ask about placing a "block" on your account. This would prevent changes from being made regarding your address and payment deposit. The "block" would require that you visit your local Social Security office in person to authorize changes. .However, current benefits, as we will learn today, are inadequate, unfair, and in many cases discriminatory, because of systemic economic inequities. .Because of the advanced ages of Notch Babies, the cost of correcting the Notch is falling every day. TSCL estimates (in 2006) that the cost of Notch Reform would be about billion, or slightly less than .75 billion per year over the next four years. The billion could be financed without taking additional money from the Social Security Trust Fund. This could be done through cutting wasteful pork barrel spending and reducing fraud and abuse in government programs. In fiscal year 2006 alone, lawmakers spent about billion in pork-barrel projects (8). That doesn't include what the government lost to improper payments, fraud, and abuse. The Government Accountability Office estimated that for fiscal year 2005 government agencies improperly spent more than billion (9). .Second, the Social Security 2100 Act (H.R. 1902) gained one new cosponsor in Representative Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), bringing the cosponsor total to 16If signed into law, H.R. 1902 would strengthen Social Security benefits by improving the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), increasing monthly benefits by 2 percent, 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%.