News

  • Biden Plan Leaves Out Drug Price Reductions

    More recently they have justified high prices by comparing them with the costs they would prevent. Expensive hepatitis C drugs, they say, avoid the need for a million liver transplant. No matter that the comparison being made is to the highly inflated costs of treating disease in American hospitals. .Financial losses in real estate and retirement accounts of the Great Recession of 2008 have left today's retirees and Baby Boomers with far less home equity and assets to draw from in retirement, even though seniors are living longer. Retirements are spanning 25 and even thirty years, but today's seniors are going into retirement with little savings. A recent Harris poll found that 22 percent of retirees age 65 and older say they have none of their retirement savings left. These people are completely dependent on Social Security and other family members. .If signed into law, S. 960 would base Social Security cost-of-living adjustments on the Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers (CPI-E) and gradually phase out the cap on income subject to the payroll tax. … Continued

  • Social Security Medicare Blamed Rising Deficits

    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. .Please participate in the 2019 Senior Survey! .Until then, TSCL will continue to monitor the movement of President Obama's immigration orders closely, since they could significantly affect the Social Security and Medicare programs if implemented. We will post updates here in the Legislative News section of our website. … Continued

Legislation to help state is urgently needed because some of them are already cutting Medicaid. States are required by law to balance their budgets and Medicaid is one of the largest items in the budgets of many states. And of course, cuts to Medicaid hurt some of the most vulnerable seniors as well as others who could not otherwise afford the health care they need. .TREA Senior Citizens League Backs New Approach to Correcting the Notch ."We should not allow health insurers to limit how much cost-sharing assistance can help patients at the pharmacy counter," the spokesperson said. .The study examined the increase in costs of 32 key items between 2000 and January 201The items were chosen because they are typical of the costs seniors must bear. Of the 32 costs analyzed, 20 exceeded the total percentage of increase in the COLA over the same period. .More information available on our website: .Benefit Bulletin: February 2014 Before Obamacare & 8220;Glitch,& 8221; There Was The Notch Glitch .Officials in Canada said at that time that this would not be an effective approach to reducing drug prices in the U.S. since the Canadian market is small, representing only 2% of global pharmaceutical sales, compared to 44% south of the border. .Senator Nelson also asked Congressman Price about his plans to privatize the Medicare program at Wednesday's hearing. A recent reform plan authored by the Congressman would transform the traditional Medicare program into a "premium support" model, where beneficiaries would be given vouchers from the federal government to purchase private insurance. In the past, Congressman Price has claimed that such plans would result in lower costs for both Medicare and its beneficiaries, but at Wednesday's hearing, Senator Nelson presented a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office that projected premium increases of at least 125 percent for seniors living in Florida and other heavily populated states. He expressed serious concerns about the privatization of Medicare since his constituents would see higher medical costs. .Congressional Impasse Results in Shut-Down