4 in 10 beneficiaries rely on Social Security for the majority of their income. .The Effect of Economic Conditions Was Not Foreseen, and Therefore Could Not Have Been Intended by Congress .Social Security survival strategies with COLA only at 0.2% .He said the out-of-pocket costs that patients are paying need to be fixed and that pharmaceutical company executives would be willing to help cover the cost of such reform. However, he said they want to ensure their contributions would go directly toward lowering patient costs and not into the federal budget to be used for other things. .Increasing the amount of wages that is taxed for Social Security, which is currently limited to 7,200. Higher - wage earners currently pay no Social Security taxes at all on income earned over that amount. .Recently the House Budget Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee both held hearings on the controversial Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The IPAB was created under the healthcare reform law to slow rising Medicare costs. If costs grow too fast, the IPAB would recommend cuts that would go into effect unless Congress comes up with the same amount of savings. Both Committees heard testimony from Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, among many others. .The "offset" rules for unemployment affected large numbers of seniors during the recent period of high unemployment. In Virginia, for example, the state unemployment insurance reserves dropped so low that a state law was triggered requiring cuts to the unemployment benefit payments of Social Security recipients in January 20By October, 30,000 jobless seniors in Virginia had been affected, and the offset completely wiped out the unemployment benefit of an additional 4,000. .The high cost of treatment is a frequently cited barrier by those who are not getting the dental care they need. Elizabeth H., a retiree living in Colorado told us "I do not have the ,000 I was told that I needed to get my teeth fixed. They need to either be pulled and a bridge put in, or root canaled. Being on a limited income, I do not see getting any of this done, and so it affects my health negatively. Without dental care, I'm not as healthy as I could be." .The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says that after passage of recent massive tax and budget legislation, over the next decade the federal deficit is now expected to be .7 trillion higher than estimated in June of 201"To put that in context, that's close to the total amount of money that the federal government would need to cover the reserves held by the Social Security Trust Fund over the next 13 years," Johnson points out.