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  • Justin Jump Trea National President

    The resolution's authors wrote, "Our plan would strengthen Medicare by offering future seniors guaranteed-coverage options – including traditional Medicare – regardless of pre-existing conditions or health history. All seniors will have the support they need to get the care they deserve." .The situation is affecting lower-income seniors with modest resources because states require single seniors to exhaust nearly all of their assets, including their home equity, to qualify for Medicaid. Meyer reports that "Federal Medicaid rules allow states to exempt the home from consideration of financial eligiblilty if the family is making a good faith effort to sell, but not all states do." Depending on where they live, seniors may not qualify for Medicaid if they can't sell their home. .Many Members of Congress who have been long-time friends to seniors and those who have introduced key bills for The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) fared well in Tuesday's elections. Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR-4) (sponsor of the CPI-E Act) won re-election, as did Rep. Linda Sanchez (CA-38) (sponsor of the Strengthening Social Security Act), Rep. Rodney Davis (IL-13) (sponsor of the Social Security Fairness Act), and Rep. Walter Jones (NC-3) (sponsor of the Social Security Guarantee Act). … Continued

  • Legislative Update Week Ending September 2 2016

    This tax season is likely to be more uncertain for taxpayers of all ages due to the impact of COVID-19 on business closures, loss of income from earnings and wages, a temporary waiver of minimum distributions from retirement accounts, high medical costs for some people, confusion over tax treatment of working from home, and how stimulus payments and program benefits such as unemployment should be treated for tax purposes. .Patients would spend less to achieve better health. Value-based care systems focus on helping patients to recover from illness and on managing or avoiding chronic disease. The aim is to decrease the need for doctor visits, medical tests and procedures, and to reduce the amount of money spent on prescriptions while improving health. Value-based care encourages health providers to spend time on prevention-based services in order to focus more efforts on managing chronic disease with the goal of reducing costs like emergency room visits and hospitalizations. .A loop-hole in current Social Security law could allow millions of Mexican workers and their dependents to eventually collect Social Security benefits for earnings while working under fraudulent, or non-work-authorized, Social Security numbers. … Continued

This week, after weeks of intense negotiations, lawmakers reached a bipartisan budget deal that will fund the federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year. In addition, The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) saw one key bill gain critical support. .TSCL is not the only organization to warn about the prospect of another extremely low COLA next year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in its latest budget report projected that next year's COLA would be 1.6%. Seniors depend on COLAS to protect the buying power of benefits from rising costs over retirement, which can last as long as 25 or 30 years. But over the past five years, COLAs have been at record lows, averaging only 1.4% after averaging about 4% per year since COLAs became automatic in 1975. .We are still learning how well COVID-19 vaccines keep people from spreading the disease. .This week, three new cosponsors – Reps. Rosa DeLauro (CT-3), Alcee Hastings (FL-20), and Robert Scott (VA-3) – signed on to the Strengthening Social Security Act (H.R. 3118). The cosponsor total is now up to thirty-three. If signed into law, the bill would reform the Social Security program in three ways: it would adjust the benefit formula, resulting in more generous monthly benefits; it would adopt a Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, resulting in more accurate cost-of-living adjustments; and it would lift the cap on income subject to the payroll tax. TSCL enthusiastically supports the Strengthening Social Security Act since it would extend the solvency of the Trust Fund responsibly, without cutting benefits. We were pleased to see support grow for it this week, and we look forward to helping build support for it in the coming months. .The number of older taxpayers who find that a portion of their Social Security benefits are taxable tends to grow over time. Unlike income brackets that are adjusted for inflation, the income thresholds that subject Social Security benefits to taxation have never been adjusted since Social Security benefits became taxable in 198When the law was first passed, less than 10 percent of all Social Security recipients were estimated to have incomes high enough to be affected by the tax on benefits. But today, even retirees with modest incomes can be affected by the tax. .Social Security uses the 35 years of highest earnings to calculate benefits, and Social Security statistics confirm women have lower benefits than men. The average Social Security primary insurance amount for women is 26% lower than that of men — ,297 for women vs. ,747 for men. Some proposals have suggested giving Social Security credits to unpaid caregivers to fill in the zeros in Social Security earnings records during years of family caregiving. This would tend to boost initial retirement benefits. .Source: Congressional Research Service May 24, 1999 .Many observers believe the plan will likely include a combination of tax increases and benefit cuts for Social Security. Some of the most commonly mentioned proposals are: (1) switching to the chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) to calculate Social Security COLAs; (2) lifting or raising the cap on income which is subject to Social Security taxes; and (3) raising the Social Security retirement age. Switching to the chained CPI alone would both reduce initial benefits and cut lifetime Social Security benefits by more than 10%. .Two weeks after President Trump signed an executive order "Lowering Drug Prices by Putting America First," the White House still has not released the text of the order. The unorthodox move is apparently a leverage play, an attempt to squeeze drug companies into offering concessions.