News

  • Outrageous Totalization Agreement With Mexico Pending

    With about 1 million supporters, The Senior Citizens League is one of the nation's largest nonpartisan seniors groups. Located just outside Washington, D.C., its mission is to promote and assist members and supporters, to educate and alert senior citizens about their rights and freedoms as U.S. Citizens, and to protect and defend the benefits senior citizens have earned and paid for. The Senior Citizens League is a proud affiliate of TREA The Enlisted Association. .The authors of the study concluded that unless the overall trend stabilizes or is reversed, or high cost-to-claim drugs are addressed, this trend will place an increasing burden on the neurologic Medicare budget. .The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is provided to protect the buying power of Social Security benefits from rising prices. Yet for almost a decade, retirees have had to manage their household budgets despite COLAs that have been at unprecedented lows. During this period, typical retiree costs have continued to rise several times faster than overall inflation and, consequently, Social Security benefits have lost one-third of their buying power since 2000. … Continued

  • Legislative Update For Week Ending April 22 2016

    The approach taken in the Scott bill is also the approach favored in the Senate bills. Ways and Means Chairman Neal said they will start negotiating a compromise between the two House bills that will also be agreeable to the Senate and he is optimistic they can reach a solution soon. This approach is opposed by conservative groups such as the National Taxpayers Union, which have opposed what they call "rate-setting." .Be suspicious of products that claim to treat a wide range of diseases. .How Does TSCL Project the Social Security COLA? … Continued

According to an article in The Hill, a Washington, D.C., newspaper that covers legislative matters in Congress, it just might happen. .This week, Congressman Walter Jones (NC-3) introduced the Honesty in Consumer Price Index (CPI) Reporting Act (H.R. 3500), a bill that aims to make Social Security COLAs more fair and accurate for beneficiaries. It would accomplish this by requiring the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to report the CPI using the methodology that was employed back in 1980, around the time when COLAs first became automatic. .Some policy analysts argue that the "chained" CPI is more accurate, but the Congressional Budget Office has stated that using that index has limitations. Unlike the conventional consumer price index in which final data from one month to the next is available in about two weeks, final data for the chained CPI isn't available until well over a year and a half. "That means preliminary estimates that are subject to error would have to be used for indexing," Johnson explains. .Medicare Advantage Plans May Offer New Supplemental Benefits, .Employers are only required to check SSNs and report wages, but aren't required to verify whether individual workers have legal authorization to work in this country. When employers submit wage reports with SSNs that don't match those of Social Security, the reports wind up in the Earnings Suspense File until they can be reconciled. .A study by the Health Care Cost Institute found that people receiving observation and other outpatient services in the hospital paid four times more out-of-pocket than inpatients in 2012— an average of per inpatient versus 9 for outpatients. Under Medicare, outpatients usually have co-payments or co-insurance for each service from doctors, test, prescription drug, and other hospital services. .As you may have heard, Social Security recipients received a cost-of-living increase this year. This is good news for seniors, but it's not good enough. .The Senior Citizens League enthusiastically supports H.R. 2276, H.R. 4957, S. 2387, and S. 2671, and we were pleased to see support grow for them this week. For more information about these and other TSCL-backed bills, visit the Bill Tracking section of our website. .In a letter of endorsement, Art Cooper – Chairman of The Senior Citizens League's Board of Trustees – wrote: "TSCL salutes you for introducing legislation that would make COLAs more accurate, reduce senior poverty by boosting monthly benefits, cut taxes for millions of beneficiaries, and ask wealthier Americans to contribute to the program more fairly. Together, these changes would strengthen Social Security benefits while extending the solvency of the trust funds for decades to come."