News

  • S 1132 Protecting And Preserving Social Security Act

    Year after year, seniors are struggling with higher-priced groceries, copays, deductibles and prescription medications. To make matters worse, Republicans in Congress are passing bills that raise healthcare and housing costs for seniors. .Many expected the Obama administration to seek an emergency review of the decision by the Supreme Court, but on Wednesday, the Justice Department announced that it would not. Instead, the administration said it will focus on another 5th Circuit hearing that's scheduled for the week of July 6th. .The Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced a bold new model to save money and improve healthcare quality by changing the way the government pays doctors. The Administration is taking steps to ensure that, by 2018, up to half of all payments to doctors won't be for visits and procedures, but rather for providing "high quality" care. The plan is to pay doctors on how they perform. … Continued

  • Ask The Advisor November 2015

    Mary: What is the "anchor effect" and could you give an example? ."Income-Relating Medicare Part B and Part D Premiums: How Many Medicare Beneficiaries Will Be Affected?" Kaiser Family Foundation, Publication No. 8126, December 2010. .This week, The Senior Citizens League was pleased to see support grow for two key bills that would improve retirement security in America if adopted. … Continued

Use call block technology. If you have a smart phone, you can block calls from unknown numbers. Some land line phones also have similar technology. .Things aren't likely to improve next year. The Social Security Chief Actuary recently estimated that the COLA in 2017 would be just 0.4 percent, which would be the lowest COLA ever paid. That would raise benefits just .00 per ,000 in benefits. .Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, has said the government has some intellectual property rights. Moderna seems to dispute that view, saying it is "not aware of any I.P. that would prevent us from commercializing" a COVID-19 vaccine. ."AbbVie is one of 33 member companies of the industry's top lobbying group, PhRMA, which raised nearly 0 million from membership dues in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available. But AbbVie's political action committee is one of just two pharmaceutical company PACs to donate the maximum ,000 to PhRMA's federal PAC since 2013, a potential indicator that AbbVie was highly motivated to influence legislation," according to a report on Salon.com. .How will you maintain interaction with others and enjoyable relationships? If you live alone do you have opportunities for regular activities with friends and family? If you were to move to new housing, how would that change things? Do you have good computer and internet skills? Are you active with volunteer activities? .TSCL supports legislation that would strengthen the COLA three ways: .However, there are several steps an importer would have to take to be certified to import the drugs and they are costly. If the current FDA rules are kept in place it could be that states would not see significant savings in the costs of drugs, or even enough savings to justify the cost of setting up such a program. .President Trump also said this last weekend that over the next 2 weeks he will pursue an executive order requiring health insurers to cover pre-existing conditions. "We will be pursuing a major executive order" on pre-existing conditions, Trump said during a news conference in N.J. .Grassley's proposal has long been seen as the most likely major drug pricing legislation to reach Trump's desk. However, conservative groups dislike the bill's cap on drug pricing increases and the legislation's main Democratic sponsor, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), recently withdrew from negotiations on the package.