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. .Rick is currently retired from the Central Georgia Multiple Listing Service, Inc., after serving 15 years as President and Chief Executive Officer. .Sources: "Do You Like Your Doctor? Obamacare Drives UnitedHealth to Downsize its Medicare Physician Networks," Avik Roy, Forbes, November 18, 2013. .(Washington, DC) – Medicare doesn't have the authority to negotiate drug prices, leaving millions of older Americans at risk of price gouging for their prescription drugs, according to a new comparison of drug plans by The Senior Citizens League (TSCL). "Because Medicare isn't negotiating on our behalf, there's no consistency in drug pricing among drug plans," states TSCL's Medicare policy analyst, Mary Johnson, who performed the comparisons using the Medicare website's Drug Plan Finder. Costs vary enormously between plans. "The disparity in pricing for the same drug can be in the hundreds of dollars," says Johnson. .Thousands of nursing homes across the country have not been checked to see if staff are following proper procedures to prevent coronavirus transmission, a form of community spread that is responsible for more than a quarter of the nation's Covid-19 fatalities. .Medicare Advantage, and its predecessor Medicare+Choice —both known as Medicare Part "C" — however, has no clear track record of saving the government money. In fact, for a number of years, Medicare Advantage cost more than traditional Medicare. .Unlike many other organizations TSCL accepts no government funding -- this leaves us free to truly represent the interests of supporters like you. .Unless you are in poor health and need money to put food on the table or keep a roof over your head, these days it makes sense to delay starting benefits as long as you can. That's especially true if you're single and have limited retirement savings. If you claim Social Security too early, you could set yourself up for a reduced standard of living for the rest of your life. .Generally, you pay higher premiums for plans that have no deductibles. All too often, though, Medicare consumers pay premiums that far exceed the cost of the deductible because they don't do the math. Having a plan that pays the Part A (hospital) deductible of 2 makes sense, because just one trip to the hospital could take your entire month's Social Security benefit.