To help protect the buying power of benefits, TSCL supports legislation that would provide a modest boost in benefits, base COLAs on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) and guarantee a COLA no lower than 3 percent. To learn more, visit . .A new Medicare cost-saving rule that was launched late in 2020 will cut payments to hospitals for some surgical procedures and could potentially raise costs for Medicare recipients. According to an article by Susan Jaffe, of Kaiser Health News, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has for years classified 1,740 surgeries and other services as "so risky" for older adults that Medicare would pay for them only when people were admitted to the hospital as inpatients. But under the new rule, CMS is beginning to phase out that requirement. By the end of 2023, these "inpatient only services" which includes complicated procedures such as heart and brain operations, is scheduled to be gone. .Emergency 3% COLA, Social Security And Medicare Issues Land on the Congressional Priority List .According to a recent survey by The Senior Citizens League, 74 percent of survey participants favor applying the 12.4% Social Security payroll tax to all earnings. To learn more, visit . .Paying heating or cooling bills, .Lawmakers will likely pass a short-term bill that will provide funding through Friday, May 5th. The seven-day stopgap measure will buy time for lawmakers to continue working on a larger omnibus spending bill that will fund the government through September 30th – the end of the fiscal year. .Since 2000, COLAs have increased Social Security benefits a total of 55 percent, yet typical senior expenses through July 2021 grew 104.8%. The average Social Security benefit in 2000 was 6 per month. That benefit grew to ,262.40 by 2021 due to COLA increases. However, because retiree costs are rising at a far more rapid pace than the COLA, this study found that a Social Security benefit of ,671.20 per month (8.80 more) would be required just to maintain the same level of buying power that 6 had in 2000. .I retired seven years ago at age 65 when I started Social Security and Medicare. I have difficulty budgeting my healthcare costs. I never seem to learn what they will be until I start getting the bills. Can you help? .The total cost for a single year of treatment with the nation's most expensive specialty drugs can cost more than the entire retirement savings for many retirees. The annual cost of the cancer drug Idhifa, for example, is 0,85According to a new study by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, the median out-of-pocket cost that Medicare Part D beneficiaries will pay out-of-pocket for specialty drugs in 2019 would be ,55Patients suffering from multiple sclerosis could pay an estimated out-of-pocket of ,409 in 2019 for Glatiramer acetate. Even on the "low side," the annual out-of-pocket for Hepatitis C drug, Zepatier runs ,622.