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  • Legislative Update Week Ending January 12 2017

    "We are saying you need to be doing more inspections," Verma told reporters, explaining her message to states. "We called on states in early March to go into every single nursing home and to do a focused inspection around infection control." .Social Security Subcommittee Discusses Disability Fraud .Single taxpayers with more than one job. … Continued

  • Congressional Corner Its Time For Seniors To Get A Fair Cola 2

    According to the report, CMS has not expanded the recovery audit program to Medicare Advantage by the end of 2010 as was required by the Patient Protection Act. Recovery audits have been used for years in other Medicare programs to recover improper payments. TSCL believes Congress must provide stronger oversight to ensure that scarce Medicare dollars are spent appropriately and to prevent private insurers from boosting profits by gauging both taxpayers and older Americans. .As TSCL supporters well know, Congress has not been able to accomplish significant legislative reform to the convoluted drug pricing system even though anger about high drug prices has been rising for a long time. ."Using the chained CPI to calculate COLAs would make the problem even worse," Hyland contends. "The chained CPI is calculated much differently than the Consumer Price Index for Workers (CPI-W), the current CPI, and would have a significant effect on reducing the total amount of lifetime Social Security benefits that people receive," Hyland says. "The data certainly suggests this is the case," he adds. … Continued

However, there might be other ways to augment finances, particularly through an additional tax exemption and the Child Tax Credit. The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 expands the Child Tax Credit for tax year 2021 in the following ways: .New Medicare Enrollees in 201Because these people are new to Medicare they have not had an increase in the Part B premium. Thus, they must pay the full amount in 2017 when they sign up. .Try going back to work or getting a second job. — Reducing costs is often the harder choice, because costs tend to grow with age. You may want to consider getting a job that could provide extra income and perhaps help with health benefits. Even if you must stay at home as a caregiver, you may want to consider providing adult day care to another individual if your home is set up for that, or to find a job that allows you to work online from home. .Your Member of Congress appears to be referring to "value-based healthcare." The idea is that by keeping people healthy we can reduce government spending on healthcare. .When a Senate vote is tied, the Vice President, who the Constitution designates as the President of the Senate, can cast the tie-breaking vote, which is exactly what happened. .In addition, when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill on Monday to begin the lame-duck session, TSCL will keep a close eye on the evolving budget negotiations. Lawmakers have until December 9th to negotiate legislation to keep the federal government operating. Should they fail to miss the looming deadline, the federal government will shut down like it did back in 2013, and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries could see negative impacts. For progress updates from Capitol Hill, visit the Legislative News section of our website, or follow TSCL on Twitter. .Depending on your health, it might be to your advantage to start unemployment benefits and delay taking Social Security right away. Allow several months to search for a new job. The longer you can postpone starting Social Security, the higher your benefit will be. In addition, should you find a good job and start working again, your Social Security benefits could be reduced by excess earnings. If you are under your full retirement age you may earn ,480 in 2014 (,290 per month) before Social Security would withhold in benefits for every over that amount. .Raising Medicare Age Would Save 500 Billion Dollars .If the threshold is raised, many seniors who have saved for their entire lives and have carefully planned for retirement will suddenly be faced with hundreds of dollars in extra taxes—on top of the out-of-pocket medical costs they already pay. That's simply unacceptable.