House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he still expects the House to consider regular fiscal year 2021 spending bills beginning in June. But Senate Leader McConnell has not discussed any timetable for the bills coming out of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which must happen before the full Senate can consider the legislation. The Appropriations Committee got off to a late start, and it is not clear the committee will keep its summer working schedule. As a result, there is growing expectation that – once again - a continuing resolution will be needed to prevent a government shutdown on the eve of the election and that lawmakers will complete their work on the spending measures in a lame-duck session. .TSCL is highly concerned that the projected decline in Social Security revenues, along with the expected .5 trillion drop in general revenues caused by recent tax cuts, will create growing pressures to cut federal spending on benefits. The most frequently discussed changes include raising the eligibility age for benefits, imposing means testing, and slowing the growth of the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) by tying the annual boost to the more slowly-growing chained consumer price index. .Early Efforts to Hold Congress to Its Promise Leads to a Notch Commission .Congress Fails to Reach Agreement – President Takes Action .What is likely to happen if the test is not done? .More than 10,000 people died waiting for a disability decision from the Social Security Administration in 201The rising death toll coincides with the growing backlog of people awaiting a decision about their eligibility for Social Security disability insurance benefits. But even after a disabled individual has been found eligible, he or she must wait 5 months for benefits to begin, and 2 whole years before Medicare benefits start. The long waits, especially for Medicare, have forced many low to middle-income disabled beneficiaries to deplete their savings while they wait. .America's seniors deserve a secure retirement without the constant worry of how to make ends meet. Washington should be helping in this effort, not making it harder. But that's not what's happening. .(Washington, DC) – A budget proposal to switch to an alternate consumer price index, for calculating the annual Social Security cost – of - living - adjustment (COLA) is a bad deal for older and disabled Americans, says The Senior Citizens League (TSCL). The proposed "chained" consumer price index (CPI) would grow even more slowly than the conventional one that is currently used to determine the annual COLA. .Because Medicare doesn't negotiate drug prices, there are huge variations in cost for the same drug between drug plans, and even between pharmacies in the same plan. The difference in drug prices between the lowest and highest costing plans and pharmacies can be in the hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. The high cost of drugs are the single biggest reason that people don't fill a prescription! But the most frequent reason that a drug costs so much more in the highest costing plan is lack of coverage by the drug plan —the drug is not listed on the plan's formulary. Sometimes, the pharmacy is not in the plan's preferred "network", and even preferred pharmacies can have significantly higher costs. For example, the lowest cost plan for Sovaldi, a drug used to treat Hepatitis C, charges ,600 in co-insurance (for a one-year treatment). The highest cost drug plan charges 0,800, the full cost of the drug, because Sovaldi is not on the plan formulary. The lowest cost plan for Advair Diskus, which is used to control and prevent symptoms of pulmonary disease, charges a co-pay of .33 per month from a mail order pharmacy, or the highest cost plan charges 6.62 per month because the drug is not on the plan's formulary.