News
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Did Your Social Security Benefit Grow This Year After Paying Medicare Costs
While inflation varies significantly depending on the area of the country in which people live, locality - based payment rates are not calculated on living costs or specific price levels like the COLA. According to a story appearing on the Federal News Network's website, this is a common misconception about locality pay. In fact, consumer inflation is not even a factor when setting locality pay. .Two Key Bills Gain Cosponsors .TSCL Endorses New COLA Legislation … Continued
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Congressional Corner Mediocre For All Rural Healthcares Road Trip To Ruin
As our nation goes through the process of getting vaccinated for COVID-19 and getting our lives back on track, TSCL is working on a number of long-term issues that await Congressional attention. We expect policy makers in Congress will be turning their attention to the question of boosting benefits and restoring the long-term solvency of the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds. .If you would like to continue receiving these press releases via email, please send your email address to [email protected]. .The 2100 Act, if signed into law, would increase Social Security benefits by 2 percent, cut taxes for over 11 million seniors, increase the minimum benefit to 125 percent of the poverty line, and make COLAs more fair and accurate. It would also take measures to increase the solvency of the trust fund beyond the next seventy-five years, through the year 2100. … Continued
Three Key Senate Bills Gain Support ."The response we received from our supporters voicing their concerns through our petitions was extraordinary," said TSCL Executive Director Shannon Benton. "That message was loud and clear: Congress couldn't help but feel the fighting spirit and resolve of our supporters across the country." .The move is a long time coming. Legislation passed in 1996 made illegal immigrants ineligible to receive federal benefits. But according to an audit performed by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 29,185 illegal immigrants had improperly received Medicare benefits from 2009 through 201A review of 133,541 claims revealed that Medicare had paid more than .6 million in claims on behalf of 2,575 unlawfully present individuals. .Support Grows for Social Security Fairness Act .Last week, in a last ditch attempt to try and come up with new legislation, Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Meadows met with the leaders of the House and Senate see if they could reach a compromise. They could not. One of the big reasons was the overall cost of the legislation and in the amount of money that would be given to those who are unemployed because of the pandemic. .This week, the Ways and Means Committee advanced a bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), and The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) saw one key bills gain support. .There are now efforts for legislation to boost domestic manufacturing of pharmaceutical products. There is a new measure that would require the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to "convene a committee of experts to analyze the impact of U.S. dependence" on foreign medicines and to make recommendations to Congress. There is also an effort to use the fiscal 2021 defense authorization bill to strengthen U.S.-based pharmaceutical manufacturing and advance "make it in America" policies that favor domestic drug-production plants. .The Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act (S. 64), also introduced by Senators Grassley and Klobuchar, would prohibit anti-competitive pay-for-delay deals that keep much cheaper generic and biosimilar medicines off the market. .The suit is over Obama's executive actions on immigration announced last November. The executive actions would expand a program that protects immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Another major part of the orders would extend deportation protection and provide work-authorized Social Security numbers to illegal immigrants who are parents of children born in this country and who have lived in this country for some years.
