News

  • Legislative Update Week Ending March 31 2017

    Watch our public service video about the need for a fair Social Security COLA and spread the word! .Medicare Advantage plans require very careful scrutiny of potential costs. Some plans have lured seniors with low premiums and deductibles, only for enrollees to discover high undisclosed costs later. .Use the Contact Congress feature on the Home page of this site to obtain the names, addresses and other information on your Congressional delegation. You can even e-mail directly and sign our on-line petition in this full featured legislative action center. Click Guide to Contacting Congress to go to this section now. … Continued

  • 2015 Legislative Update Week Ending May 1 2015

    "AbbVie is one of 33 member companies of the industry's top lobbying group, PhRMA, which raised nearly 0 million from membership dues in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available. But AbbVie's political action committee is one of just two pharmaceutical company PACs to donate the maximum ,000 to PhRMA's federal PAC since 2013, a potential indicator that AbbVie was highly motivated to influence legislation," according to a report on Salon.com. .If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. .This week, the Social Security Administration announced the 2019 cost-of-living adjustment, and President Donald Trump signed into law legislation that will result in lower out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at pharmacies. In addition, The Senior Citizens League saw in Congress. … Continued

My sister lives alone at age 7She has no children. I've noticed a growing number of changes in her health over the past two years. She seems to have problems with anxiety, and recently became immobilized with fear of evacuating her home, prior to a severe hurricane. Fortunately she was OK, despite four days without power. Home maintenance tasks are becoming a huge burden for her and I worry about her vulnerability to scams. When should single older people start making plans for moving to assisted living? .Medicare Advantage plans contract with Medicare to provide all basic Medicare services, and plans receive monthly lump sum payments that cover expected costs for an average Medicare beneficiary. But officials have known for years that some Medicare Advantage plans overbill the government by exaggerating how sick their patients are, or by charging Medicare for treating serious medical conditions that they cannot prove that patients have. Audits of 37 health plans revealed that, on average, auditors could confirm only 60% of the more than 20,000 medical conditions that CMS paid plans to treat. .Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment – Ensure a fair, accurate, and guaranteed COLA. .Under current law, noncitizens who gain temporary work authorization can qualify for long-term Social Security benefits based on work that was done, prior to gaining authorization, under invalid Social Security numbers. Once they receive green cards, they become entitled to benefits based on prior "illegal" work. If elected, would you support legislation to modify this policy? .If signed into law, the Social Security Protection and Truth in Budgeting Act would amend the Social Security Act to ensure that receipts and disbursements of the Social Security Trust Funds are not included in a unified federal budget. It would also mandate that Trust Fund monies cannot be diverted to create private accounts. .The CPI-E regularly puts the spending inflation for seniors at two-tenths of a percentage point higher than the rate at which the CPI-W increases. That may seem like an insignificant amount, but over a twenty-five-year retirement, COLAs do compound significantly. We estimate that a senior who filed for Social Security benefits around thirty years ago would have received nearly ,000 more in retirement if the CPI-E had been used to calculate COLAs. .In the months ahead, The Senior Citizens League will continue to work for enactment of this and other legislation that would strengthen and enhance Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries. For progress updates, follow The Senior Citizens League on Twitter and Facebook. .Food and Drug Administration Issues Vaccine Fraud Alert .This legislation will also create "Social Security Administration Senior Centers" as pilot projects in 10 SSA field offices that will work to streamline the application and delivery processes of federal, state and local programs that serve low-income elderly or disabled individuals.