News

  • Category Issues Medicare Part B Faqs Feed

    Millions of Seniors Are Losing Benefits .Help! I'm turning 65 soon. My daughter says I should sign up for Medicare, but I don't know what to do or where to begin. I work for a small company with 17 employees, where I get my health insurance now. About a week is currently taken out of my paycheck for premiums. My current health coverage isn't that good. It has a ,500 deductible and, because I'm still in good health, I've never been able to benefit. .The House of Representatives did not return to Washington but on Friday they held a vote on a resolution about whether to start conducting official votes by using proxies. To do so would end more than 200 years of precedent and now allow lawmakers serve as proxies for colleagues quarantined or otherwise stuck at home during the pandemic. … Continued

  • Category Legislative News Page 32

    Medicare Advantage plans. Medicare Advantage plans are administered by private insurers and cover all your Medicare Part A hospital, Part B doctors benefits. Many include Part D prescription drug benefits as well. They may also include coverage for benefits that aren't covered by Medicare, like vision or hearing services, as part of the premium, or you may pay extra for the coverage. You can enroll during your initial Medicare enrollment period or during the fall Open Enrollment Period that runs from October 15 through December To learn more about Medicare Advantage plans in your area, check your 2014 copy of Medicare & You. Call Medicare toll free at 1-800- MEDICARE ( 7) or visit Medicare.gov. .These success stories would not have been possible without the support from tens of thousands of advocates like you who are banding together with TSCL to protect Social Security and Medicare. Once again, TSCL's legislative team has big goals this year. Since the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced seniors would not receive a benefit increase in 2016, we have been advocating tirelessly for an emergency cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security beneficiaries. Two bills that are now before Congress – the Seniors Deserve a Raise Act (H.R. 3761) and the SAVE Benefits Act (S. 2251, H.R. 4012) – would provide benefit increases of 2.9 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively. In the months ahead we will continue to encourage lawmakers to sign these bills into law because retired and disabled Americans need relief this year. .TSCL Endorses Two New House Bills … Continued

TSCL is relieved that Members of Congress came to an agreement this week, since another government shutdown like last year's would have severely affected Social Security and Medicare benefits for seniors. However, lawmakers will need to revisit the spending debate in ten short weeks since the temporary bill expires on December 11th. TSCL will continue to monitor the discussions in the meantime, and we will post updates here in the Legislative News section of our website. .And no matter what critics may say about the dire finances of the Social Security, the government can find the money for Notch Reform simply by cutting waste, fraud and abuse. The General Accountability Office reported earlier this year that government agencies made over billion in improper payments in fiscal year 200Forty-five billion would more than pay for a Notch settlement. TSCL estimates the cost of the Notch Fairness Act to be around billion. .Medicare health plans also have new rules about co-pays and co-insurance. Copayments can vary drastically between MA plans, but through 2018, individual plans were required to offer all enrollees in the plan's service area access to the same benefits at the same level of cost - sharing. In 2019, MA plans have the option of imposing tiers for the cost - sharing of contracted providers, as an incentive to encourage enrollees to seek care from specific providers. Plans that utilize tiered cost-sharing must disclose tiered co-pays and co-insurance amounts to enrollees and providers, ensure that services at each tier of cost-sharing are available to all enrollees, and ensure that all enrollees are charged the same amount for the same service from the same provider. .If a COVID-19 vaccine yields a price of, say, 0 a course, vaccinating the entire population would bring a company over 0 billion, almost all of it profit. .Lower spending on prescription drugs. Under our current Medicare system, experts warn that Americans are taking too many unnecessary drugs for dubious reasons. A value-based system would tie the price of prescription drugs to its value in the treatment of the patient. For example, patients with high blood pressure would receive their blood pressure medications for the lowest price or even no co-pay. Value-based systems could lead to reducing the number of unnecessary prescriptions and over-the-counter medications that patients take, while improving their health. .The age at which you start receiving Social Security benefits. .This does not mean you should stop using hand sanitizers when you cannot thoroughly wash your hands. It just means you would be wise to throw out any of the above listed hand sanitizers if you have them. .If these cuts ever went into effect, it could mean tens of millions of seniors no longer have access to their doctors and essential healthcare services. This is unacceptable. For too long, Congress has failed to seriously tackle the issue of physician payment reform, and instead has kicked the can down the road with short-term fixes that have now created a long-term fiscal nightmare. This has been the absolute wrong approach for American seniors and our federal budget. And that is why I have been working hard to protect seniors' access to their doctors by putting forth a plan to fix this broken system once and for all. .Report Says Drug Prices in U.S. Almost 3 Times Higher than Other Countries