The government has made it much easier to drop out of an older supplemental Medigap plan and join a new Medicare Advantage plan than the other way around. In fact, if you drop your older supplement, you may not be able to get it back again should you discover your new plan is not what you thought it would be. Failure to read the fine print can expose you to thousands of dollars in unexpected out-of-pocket costs should you require even just a few days of hospitalization or have a health condition that requires multiple visits to the doctor and lab services. .However, taking this action would cause at least two difficulties for the President. Signing legislation to reduce Medicare spending on the drugs would generate official budget savings that Congress could have applied to other health-care legislation -- bills to expand insurance coverage or reduce other drug spending, for example. Executive action taken before a bill's passage would remove a key bargaining chip, and likely reduce the scope of a health-care bill expected in the coming months. .Social Security recipients, on the other hand, wouldn't have received anything during that period because the price inflation, as measured by the government's Consumer Price Index for Workers (CPI-W), fell and was not high enough for a COLA to be payable at all until January of this year. The projected Congressional COLA for 2013 is 1.1% and that would equal an extra ,900 if it takes effect, resulting in an annual salary of 5,900. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently projected that seniors would receive a 1.3% COLA in 201If the CBO is correct, the COLA would only raise average annual Social Security benefits about 9, from ,200 in 2012 to ,389 in 201There's a widespread misconception that Members of Congress don't pay into Social Security. That's not true. They do — but not on all of their salary. ."The president's plan to import policies from socialized health care systems abroad is disrupting our work [on Covid-19 therapies] and diverting our focus away from those life-saving efforts," the spokesperson said. "We remain willing to discuss ways to lower costs for patients at the pharmacy counter. However, we remain steadfastly opposed to policies that would allow foreign governments to set prices for medicines in the United States." .As TSCL supporters know, it is a particularly important issue for older people, who rely on medications to manage the medical problems associated with advancing age. However, drug makers remain adamantly opposed to government efforts to curb prices. .TSCL believes COLAs need to be more fairly and accurately calculated, and strongly supports recently introduced legislation that would provide an emergency COLA. To learn more, visit . .This week, action on Capitol Hill slowed down as Members of Congress adjourned for a holiday recess. .If signed into law, the PRIME Act would increase fraud prevention efforts within Medicare and Medicaid. Among other things, it would enact stronger fraud penalties, curb mistaken payments, phase out the practice of "pay and chase," reduce the theft of physician identities, and improve the sharing of fraud data among agencies and programs. .The order is a direct response to the President's efforts to greenlight the importation of drugs from Canada.