News

  • 2015 Legislative Update Week Ending February 20 2015

    Legislation to Control Drug Prices Possible This Year? .Social Security and Medicare Public Trustees Recommend Raising Eligibility Age and Benefit Formula Changes .Sources: "Latino Voters and the 2010 Election: Numbers, Parties, and Issues, National Council of La Raza, 2010. … Continued

  • Private Medicare Plans Too Costly Congress Told

    TSCL is calling on Congress to close this loophole, and endorses the "No Social Security for Illegal Immigrants Act of 2007" (H.R. 736), introduced by Representative Dana Rohrabacher (CA). The legislation would close the loophole by excluding earnings of any wages for unauthorized work. .There's an old saying: "Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made." .More Funding Sought for Home Health Care … Continued

But, again to be fair, the situation was the same when the Democrats were the majority in the Senate. So perhaps the issue is not which party is in control. Maybe it's the within the institution of the Senate itself. Or maybe it's the fact that voters keep sending Senators to Washington who are afraid to compromise on issues because the voters are so divided about what they done. .Social Security Notch Legislation Introduced .Officials working on the plan have not yet settled on many of its details. The Trump administration first proposed the approach in 201Three officials familiar with the matter said it remains under consideration and has not been ruled out, despite Trump's endorsement for the Grassley-Wyden bill. .The age at which you stop working. .Medicare Therapy Caps: A Long Battle for Patient Access .With the Senate being so sharply divided, achieving that result is very questionable. .Because of the advanced ages of Notch Babies, the cost of correcting the Notch is falling every day. TSCL estimates (in 2006) that the cost of Notch Reform would be about billion, or slightly less than .75 billion per year over the next four years. The billion could be financed without taking additional money from the Social Security Trust Fund. This could be done through cutting wasteful pork barrel spending and reducing fraud and abuse in government programs. In fiscal year 2006 alone, lawmakers spent about billion in pork-barrel projects (8). That doesn't include what the government lost to improper payments, fraud, and abuse. The Government Accountability Office estimated that for fiscal year 2005 government agencies improperly spent more than billion (9). .As we have written recently, Grassley's main problem in getting his bill passed in the Senate is opposition from his fellow Republicans. Grassley said he needs at least 25 Republican co-sponsors to get his bill (S. 2543) to the floor of the Senate for a vote. Ten Republicans other than Grassley have so far made public shows of support for the legislation. .The federal government negotiates prescription drug prices for Medicaid and for veterans, but it is barred from negotiating lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries. As a result, senior citizens enrolled in Part D often pay much higher prices for their prescriptions. What are you doing to correct this unfair policy?