News

  • Legislative Update For Week Ending October 19 2012

    Medicare first began offering beneficiaries the chance to enroll in private Medicare HMOs' in the mid 1980's. That program was absorbed and expanded under the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, creating Medicare+Choice. To cut federal spending on Medicare, the Balanced Budget Act set payments to the private plans at 5% below the fee-for-service rates of traditional Medicare. But by 1999, Medicare+Choice plans were not renewing their contracts with Medicare and there was a widespread exodus, leaving more than 2 million seniors scrambling to find other coverage. .TSCL has been working with Rep. Larson the past few years to expand Social Security benefits, strengthen the Social Security Trust Fund and correct the flaw in the way annual COLAs are determined. We look forward to his reintroduction of the Social Security COVID-19 Correction and Equity Act. .Abrupt legislative cuts erode the trust that Congress needs for making far bigger changes in the future. TSCL urges you to engage candidates in conversations about Social Security and Medicare. Let's ask them what their plans are for fixing Social Security and Medicare and what changes they propose that would affect your benefits. … Continued

  • December 19 2020

    The savings compound over time and are huge. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that chaining the CPI would cut COLAs by 2 billion from 2012021 alone and, if used in other federal retirement programs and for indexing taxes, would reduce deficits by about 0 billion over the next decade. .Research that I've conducted over more than 20 years indicates that retirees would receive a higher COLA in most years using a "seniors" CPI, rather than by using the current method of indexing which is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). One of the bigger problems with using the CPI-W is the fact that retirees spend their money very differently than younger working adults. Retirees must spend more on healthcare and housing, and less on gasoline and consumer electronics. .If the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) were based on a more accurate measure of inflation for seniors, beneficiaries would not be receiving a record-low 0.3% increase this year. They would be receiving an increase of 2.1% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Do you support legislation that would base the COLA on a more accurate inflation index like the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly? … Continued

There are 1,313,935 active members/supporters. .What you can do: To sign a petition, click here. .Medicare expects to start mailing cards in May of 2018, but be patient. The cards are going out on a "rolling basis" to different states over the next 9 months (see the chart at the end of this article.) To learn when new Medicare cards start mailing to your area, sign up for e-alerts from Medicare by visiting Medicare.gov/NewCard. .There are new federal rules that require hospitals to post their pricing information online in order to give patients the information they need to make decisions about their health care. But it turns out that some large hospital systems have been using codes that prevent that information from appearing in online search results. .More information available on our website: .The transition has set off dozens of new Medicare scams. To protect yourself from scam here's what to remember. There is nothing you need to do to get your card, and it does not cost anything. It will be shipped to you automatically. Scammers try to call beneficiaries on the phone and falsely claim that to get the new card you must provide Social Security, credit card, or bank account information, or Medicare benefits will be canceled. All of these claims are false. If you get a call like this or if anyone calls unsolicited, and claiming to be from Medicare, HANG UP. This is a scam. Once you get your new Medicare number, don't toss your old Medicare card in the trash — shred or cut it up into small pieces. .The exact mechanisms for enacting the provisions therein — such as requiring manufacturers to reveal their development costs — remain unclear. The industry has previously protected development data as a trade secret. The bills would also require "reasonable pricing clauses" be included in agreements between drug companies and agencies funding their work. They propose waiving exclusive licenses for COVID-19 drugs, allowing competitors to sell the same products as long as they pay the patent holder royalties. .Key Social Security Bills Gain Support .You can gather indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household (for example, visiting with relatives who all live together) without masks, unless any of those people or anyone they live with has an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.