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  • Category Legislative News Page 56

    We urge you to contact Members of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor "The Notch Fairness Act." Suggest that by cutting the rate of improper payments due to waste, fraud and abuse, your elected lawmakers can correct the most improper payment of all, the disparity in benefits caused by the Notch and erroneous government assumptions. .We have warned you before to be careful about scams when it comes to getting your coronavirus vaccination. Getting cheated out of money during a time of crisis like this is the last thing we want to happen to anyone. And even though the reports of scams have not been widespread, there have been some in various parts of the country. .Last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned lawmakers that the suspension of the debt limit would expire on March 15th. That deadline has come and gone without congressional action, and the Treasury Department is now using "extraordinary measures" – like postponing contributions to retirement accounts for federal employees – to prevent a default. … Continued

  • Benefit Bulletin January 2013

    Millions of Americans Forgoing Health Care .Your doctor or provider accepts "assignment" or the Medicare approved payment, as payment in full. There may be some doctors in your area that accept assignment, but fewer do that anymore. You will need to call your doctor to find out if he or she accepts assignment. Many are charging more than the Medicare-approved amount and you or your Medigap plan will need to cover the "excess" charges. Even if you do locate a doctor who accepts assignment, a growing number of doctors are not accepting new Medicare patients. To find a doctor who accepts assignment call the customer service number of your Medigap supplement. Then call the physician to find out if he or she is accepting new Medicare patients. .Specialty-tier drugs are defined by Medicare, as those that cost more than 0 per month in 2019, and include drugs used to treat cancer, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis (MS), and rheumatoid arthritis. Even when Part D enrollees reach the Medicare Part D catastrophic coverage phase, when co-insurance drops to 5%, beneficiaries who take these drugs can continue to face thousands of dollars in annual out-of-pocket costs, according to the Kaiser study. The study found that annual out-of-pocket costs for specialty drugs in 2019 are expected to average ,994 across the 28 specialty-tier drugs that are covered by drug plans. … Continued

If we get 100,000 signatures, we know that the President will hear our concerns because the White House will have to answer our petition. .What would you say are the three most important decisions to maximize Social Security? .Editor's note: While I have a pretty reliable track record on estimating the COLA, this year's inflation is far different than at any previous time in the past 26+ years. Inflation has been so volatile that I worry my probability models may not work as well as they typically do. In most years I'm pretty certain about my September estimate of the COLA for the following year. But this time all bets are off. Be patient — I'm no psychic, and stay tuned to the news! .Social Security Totalization Agreements are designed so that workers and their employers would not be subject to double taxation, owing payroll taxes to both the country in which they work, and their home nation. In addition, totalization agreements allow workers to earn generic work credits good for receiving retirement benefits in either country. These credits from the United States and other countries can be totaled together to receive benefits. The U.S. currently has 24 totalization agreements with other nations, most having economies similar to our own. .TSCL enthusiastically supports H.R. 1030, H.R. 1795, and H.R. 2305, and we were pleased to see support grow for each one this week. .In 2014 the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the average tax payment of Social Security households equaled 6.7 percent of benefit income — an amount that is estimated to grow to 9 percent of benefits by 203"That growth is likely to occur much more rapidly due to changes in the tax law, which uses a more slowly growing consumer price index to adjust the tax code," Johnson says. .We want to reiterate here that TSCL is a non-partisan organization and we work with any member of Congress and both political parties when they support legislation that we believe is in the best interest of America's seniors. .To receive benefits on your ex-spouse's record, you must be unmarried, and your ex-spouse must be entitled to a Social Security retirement or disability benefit. But don't try to take it sooner than age 66, or you will lock in a permanent reduction for your own retirement benefit, even if you take it later. .Since the start of CPI-E in 1983, the average difference between it and the CPI-W is roughly .25 percentage point per year. Sounds tiny but, like interest, it compounds over time. Had the CPI-E been used to determine COLAs since 2015, your benefit would be about 2% higher today. An average benefit of ,215 per month in 2015 will increase to ,298 per month in 2020. But had the CPI-E been used to calculate the COLAs, that benefit would have been per month more or ,324 in 2020.