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    In addition to funding the government, the 2,000-page deal will renew health benefits for 9/11 responders, lift a ban on the exportation of crude oil that has been around for nearly fifty years, and delay two Obamacare taxes for two additional years – one tax on medical devices and one tax on high-cost "Cadillac" healthcare plans. As a part of the deal, leaders in Congress also agreed to make permanent a number of tax breaks that have been subject to frequent renewals for decades. .On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed two bills – the Know the Lowest Price Act (S. 2553) and the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act (S. 2554) – into law that will protect Medicare beneficiaries and privately insured individuals from "gag clauses" at pharmacies. "Gag clauses" prevent pharmacists from telling consumers when it would be cheaper to purchase their prescriptions out-of-pocket than through their Medicare Part D or health insurance plans. .Editor's note: While I have a pretty reliable track record on estimating the COLA, this year's inflation is far different than at any previous time in the past 26+ years. Inflation has been so volatile that I worry my probability models may not work as well as they typically do. In most years I'm pretty certain about my September estimate of the COLA for the following year. But this time all bets are off. Be patient — I'm no psychic, and stay tuned to the news! … Continued

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    Senate Committee Discusses Drug Costs .The crackdown was unique not only for its scale, but also. No Lie! Affordable Care Act Not So Affordable .What would locality pay adjustments mean for your Social Security benefits? It's unclear, and likely difficult to estimate. Studies would have to be performed to compare locality - based pay adjustments to what future annual COLAs might be. Locality pay adjustments would be higher in areas where private sector pay scales are higher than those of federal workers, and lower in areas where pay scales are lower. The percentage of the annual locality pay increase would vary depending on where you live. Some retirees would receive a lower percentage of increase, or even no increase, while others a higher percentage. … Continued

We at TSCL believe this is something that should have been done years ago. .Be suspicious of products that claim to treat a wide range of diseases. .Terry: The anchor effect is the psychological tendency to rely too much on the first piece of information we get in the process of making a decision. For example, when you go to buy a house, the list price becomes the starting point (the "anchor") for negotiations, even if it is a very poor reflection of the home's true value. When you get a solicitation for a charitable donation in the mail, it often lists suggested contributions, starting with the highest figure they hope you will select. That high figure becomes the anchor for your thinking about what to give. . Zero premiums are also likely to end very soon. If Congress should cut reimbursements to plans as has happened in the past, some plans may respond by no longer offering coverage at all. Should Paula enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan and her plan ceases to offer coverage in the future, Paula could have problems finding something comparable that she could afford. .Although immigration law forbids work without authorization, immigrants do find jobs, and the majority of employers report their earnings to SSA. Each year SSA receives hundreds of millions of W-2s. When the name and Social Security number (SSN) do not match SSA's records, the W-2 is held in the Earnings Suspense File (ESF). Recent data indicates that in recent years the ESF is growing at an unprecedented pace and the cumulative wages represented is now 5 billion. These wages can later be reinstated to valid Social Security numbers when immigrants gain work authorization. Because earnings are used to determine both the number of quarters of coverage worked for insured status, and the initial retirement benefit, this poses a substantial liability to the Social Security Trust Fund and would worsen its solvency. ."'I don't anticipate that anything gets there before Election Day,' Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters Wednesday. ‘I think that was a concern that there might have been a look that this was done for a political motivation. That's not the case.'" .If adopted, the Social Security Administration Fairness Act would accomplish the following: .Early Wednesday morning, after weeks of negotiations, leaders in Congress unveiled the text of their .1 trillion omnibus spending bill. If adopted by both chambers and signed into law by President Obama, the omnibus will fund the federal government through September 30, 2016. .In determining the COLA what items does the government track for price changes? Why does the COLA grow so much more slowly than my costs?