News

  • More Funding Sought For Home Health Care

    Such logic would be disastrous if it were applied to a successful COVID vaccine. COVID-19 has shut down countless businesses, creating record-high unemployment. And the medical consequences of severe COVID-19 mean weeks of highly expensive intensive care. .Throughout the hearing, Barthold urged the Committee Members to address the corporate and individual tax codes. For both, he recommended total overhaul. .The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is provided to protect the buying power of Social Security benefits from rising prices. Yet for almost a decade, retirees have had to manage their household budgets despite COLAs that have been at unprecedented lows. During this period, typical retiree costs have continued to rise several times faster than overall inflation and, consequently, Social Security benefits have lost one-third of their buying power since 2000. … Continued

  • 210 Billion Cola Cut Proposed Pay Trumps Border Wall

    Although we didn't hear what we had hoped to hear during our visits, at least we know where things stand and what must be done if anything is to be passed regarding lowering drug prices. TSCL will continue pressing Members of Congress to get drug price legislation passed but we will need the help of every TSCL supporter to get on the phone or send an email to your Senators and let them know you want something done this year. You can contact your Members office through our website at , or call toll free (the call will be paid for by The Senior Citizens League) at 844-455-0045. .Also putting pressure on the program, TSCL anticipates that more people will file claims for benefits. While employment was at record levels just a few months ago, many older adults postponed filing for benefits to allow their Social Security payouts and retirement accounts to grow. Now, faced with paid sick leave and unemployment benefits ending, older workers are unlikely to be able to afford to wait to file for benefits if they have lost their jobs. In addition, workers lucky enough to have 401(k)s and IRAs have experienced significant losses in the value of those retirement accounts and will be depending on Social Security all the more. Big changes in equity prices reduce the distributions from those accounts. .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. … Continued

At a time when Congress is deeply divided on many issues, we need to find a way to break through the gridlock to pass bipartisan, commonsense measures to support our nation's seniors. In that spirit, I introduced the bipartisan SAFE ID Act to ensure that seniors can retire without fear of having their identity stolen or losing their savings. With nine of the ten top cities for tax-ID fraud located in Florida, many seniors in my home state have fallen prey to identity theft and other forms of fraud. This bipartisan legislation will eliminate one big source of identity theft by allowing a shortened taxpayer identity number to be used in place of a social security number on taxpayer forms like W-2s. .72% support applying the Social Security payroll tax to all earnings (instead of capping the amount of wages to be taxed at 2,800), a move that would reduce Social Security's long - term deficit by as much as 73%. .While inflation varies significantly depending on the area of the country in which people live, locality - based payment rates are not calculated on living costs or specific price levels like the COLA. According to a story appearing on the Federal News Network's website, this is a common misconception about locality pay. In fact, consumer inflation is not even a factor when setting locality pay. .One is that vaccines for the flu and pneumonia may be protective because the two diseases they are designed to prevent are known to affect the brain. Another possibility involves evidence linking Alzheimer's to a general weakening in the immune system and to changes that allow more bacteria and viruses into the brain. .In January as my specialist told me goodbye, he gave me a 10-day prescription for a simple .16 antibiotic. Did I get better? Yes, at least for now. While the antibiotic treatment was inexpensive and seems effective at curing the cough, the CT scan and bronchoscopy he ordered last year cost about ,000 before insurance. Would I have done just as well getting that prescription from my primary care doctor and skipping all the rest? Maybe, but how does the patient make that judgment? .Our nation is in a hyper-partisan period as the November elections approach. In this environment it becomes tricky when reporting about issues that affect you and other TSCL supporters because the issues are so often intertwined with politics. .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. .With the impeachment drama out of the way Congress really got down to business this week. Health care is the number one issue on the minds of voters as we head toward the November elections and Congress knows it. .We had no way to tell how much worse these scams were about to become. As a result of this pandemic, our legislative efforts must evolve just as these scams have.