News

  • 2016 Best Ways Save August 2016

    TSCL has received a growing volume of email from seniors who say their new Part D or Medicare Advantage plan isn't all it's cracked up to be. Many of you complain of higher-than-expected costs, and quite a few asked how you could drop your plan. Selecting the right Medicare supplement or Medicare Advantage plan is highly complicated. The system has stymied almost everyone who works with it, Medicare advocates, pharmacists, insurers, and — especially — government employees. How can the average senior be expected to figure it out? .Social Security's combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds will be fully funded until 203At that point, if nothing is done by Congress, Social Security will still have the funds to pay out 79 percent of scheduled benefits using tax revenues. The Trustees also estimated that Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund will be fully funded until 2026, at which point the program will still be able to pay out 88 percent of scheduled benefits using tax revenues. .Provide Social Security beneficiaries with an emergency COLA. Medical costs are on the rise, and many seniors are currently experiencing excessive prescription drug price increases of 1,000% or more. Those increases are not reflected in the COLA since it is based on the way young, urban workers spend their money, using the CPI-W. TSCL feels strongly that a modest one-time payment of 0 would give seniors much-needed relief next year. … Continued

  • No Cola Expected For Next Year

    Will the Government Shut Down in 10 Days? .According to a report from Kaiser Health News, the skepticism is "Because whether it's sharing the credit for a legislative victory with the other party or running afoul of the powerful pharmaceutical lobby, neither Democrats nor Republicans are sure the benefits are worth the risks, according to several of those familiar with the debate on Capitol Hill. . I lost my job a few months ago and at age 64, recently started Social Security retirement benefits. I just found out that I can work and still receive benefits at the same time. Can you tell me how this works? I thought. Ask the Advisor: January 2021 My Husband Had a stroke at 6Would He Qualify For Social Security Disability? … Continued

The federal government negotiates prescription drug prices for Medicaid and for veterans, but it is not allowed to negotiate lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries. Do you support this policy? .In addition, the full retirement age — the age at which individuals qualify for full, unreduced Social Security benefits, is rising. Retiring prior to the full retirement age permanently reduces benefits by as much as 30 percent. The full retirement age, which is currently is 66, goes up by 2 months per year for people born after 1954 through 195It is 67 for those born in 1960 and thereafter. .Here are a few secrets about Part D coverage that keep you stuck in your plan and overpaying for prescriptions: .This week, Senate Budget Chair Kent Conrad (ND) released his Fiscal Commission Budget Plan, which would overhaul the tax code and make major changes to both Social Security and Medicare. In addition, TSCL saw support grow for the Social Security Fairness Act. .The calculation of the COLA is based on the percentage of difference in the average third quarter change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Clerical Workers and Wage Earners (CPI-W) from one year to the next. In late August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina knocked out petroleum production, causing gasoline and other consumer prices to surge in September. The CPI-W shot up an astonishing 1.5 percent between August and September of that year. But since Katrina, the CPI-W has increased .042 percent on average from August to September. "Even if costs were to rise as much as they did after Katrina, the COLA for 2018 would still be about 2 percent," Johnson says. .The Part D initial coverage limit is ,960 this year. "That includes what both the beneficiary and the drug plan must pay, " explains TSCL's Chairman Ed Cates. Once in the doughnut hole, beneficiaries are on the hook for 65% of the cost of generic drugs, or 45% of the cost of brand name drugs. Medicare beneficiaries must spend a total of ,700 out of pocket in drug costs for the year, before catastrophic coverage kicks in. "Even then there's still some additional smaller co-insurance payments," Cates adds. .In addition, one new cosponsor – Rep. John Larson (CT-1) – signed on to the Strengthening Social Security Act (H.R. 3118), bringing the total up fifty-eight. If signed into law, the bill would reform the Social Security program in three ways: it would adjust the benefit formula, resulting in more generous monthly benefits; it would adopt the Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers (CPI-E), resulting in more accurate cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), and it would lift the cap on income subject to the payroll tax. It would extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund responsibly, without cutting benefits for seniors. .TSCL is hopeful that lawmakers will successfully repeal and replace the SGR before the looming deadline, since doing so would bring much-needed stability to the Medicare program. We will continue to monitor the negotiations in the coming weeks, and we will post updates here in the Legislative News section of our website. .Medicare Part B enrollees who don't receive Social Security benefits. This includes people who have delayed the start of Social Security and all people who are billed for Medicare. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2013 about half of all people on Medicare who don't receive Social Security yet had incomes below ,000.