The "lame duck" session of Congress began this week, and leaders in the House and Senate are hard at work on an omnibus measure that would fund the federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year. Passing an omnibus in December, according to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (KY-5), would allow the new Congress to "get old business behind [it] and start off with a clean slate in January." .The Senior Citizens League supports bipartisan legislation that would require Medicare to negotiate lower prices for Medicare Part D, would allow safe importation of prescription drugs from Canada and other countries where the same drugs are often sold for much less, and would ban "pay for delay" deals between drug manufacturers that keep cheaper generics off the market. To learn what you can do to help fight high drug costs, visit . .To make the Social Security COLA more adequate, The Senior Citizens League believes Congress must adopt the CPI-E Act (H.R. 1251). This bipartisan bill would base Social Security COLAs on the spending patterns of older Americans – not the spending patterns of young, working Americans – using the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E). .The costs shown in the chart below assumed plan coverage started on September 1, 2017 for a new enrollee. The Medicare Drug Plan Finder cost estimates include premiums, and out-of-pocket cost sharing for 201Costs shown are estimates and the actual costs may vary somewhat depending on pharmacy used. The prices illustrated in the chart are likely to change for 2018. .What happens when Congress waits too long to address a Social Security funding crisis? Deeper benefit cuts, sudden tax increases, and glitches in the implementation of reforms that can lead to significant benefit inequities between people close to each other in age. Consider the case of the Social. Benefit Bulletin: June 2013 What Caused The Social Security Notch? .Education and Communication (college tuition, postage, telephone services, computer software and accessories); .Millicent Graves of Williamsburg, Virginia recently was shocked to discover an astounding price range in the same generic drug after her doctor prescribed a different form of Clobetasol propionate, commonly used to treat psoriasis. When she filled her previous prescription in December of 2014 for the Clobetasol solution, she paid — the full retail cost. But when filling the first prescription for Clobetasol foam in 2015, Graves discovered the retail cost was 5.8And five weeks later when she refilled her prescription for the foam, the cost had jumped dramatically— to 7, making the total difference in price between the solution and foam 1,691%. "When I looked at the receipt I almost passed out," she says. "Everything is the same as the first bottle! It's price gouging," she says. .In 2014 the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the average tax payment of Social Security households equaled 6.7 percent of benefit income — an amount that is estimated to grow to 9 percent of benefits by 203"That growth is likely to occur much more rapidly due to changes in the tax law, which uses a more slowly growing consumer price index to adjust the tax code," Johnson says. .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."