News

  • Medicare Pays More For Drugs Than Medicaid

    Very modestly boosting the payroll tax paid by workers and matched by employers to employers. . Double check the price quote that you received by checking the difference in price between several retail walk-in pharmacies and Humana's mail-in. Sometimes the price can be very different between the two. I learned that my drug plan's mail-in pharmacy would charge me 3 for three albuterol inhalers. The small local walk-in pharmacy was still charging just 1.99 for three. Often, mail order can be less expensive than walk-in retail. Check for each separate drug. You can use the Medicare drug plan finder to help you look up your plan and learn the cost of your co-pay or co-insurance. .Now there are ads in various parts of the country being run by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, accusing House Republicans of doing the bidding of drug industry donors by opposing the bill. Unremarked upon are the House Democrats who've also received money from the industry — and whose opposition is seen as potentially fatal to the legislation. … Continued

  • Senior Citizens League Press Release

    The following chart illustrates 5 examples: .The Senior Citizens League enthusiastically supports the Social Security 2100 Act and we look forward to working with Congressman Larson in the 116th Congress to help build additional support for his critically important bill. For progress updates, follow The Senior Citizens League on Twitter or visit the Bill Tracking section of our website. .If all this sounds complicated — it is. But comparing these costs is well worth the effort. Depending on what you have now, Medicare may wind up saving you a considerable sum, and provide lower deductibles than what you get through your employer. This decision is important to get right, especially if you are married and your spouse is also getting health insurance through your employer's plan. If so, caution is advised because your decision affects your spouse's coverage. … Continued

Sources: "Prescribers With Questionable Patterns In Medicare Part D," Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, June 201"Medicare Fraud Outrunning Enforcement Efforts," The Center For Public Integrity, July 3, 2013. .While the policy will mean that Medicare would spend less, patients will spend more— often, a lot more, and the charges would broadside most beneficiaries, coming as a complete surprise. TSCL is strongly opposed to this type of backdoor benefit cut, and has written a letter to President Biden urging him to rescind this CMS rule. Please sign our petition! .This week, congressional leaders and President Donald Trump put an end to the partial federal government shutdown by approving a short-term CR that will reopen the government until Friday, February 15th. .Totalization Agreement with Mexico – Preventing an unnecessary and unspecified drain on the Social Security Trust Fund. .TSCL has many veterans among its supporters and no-doubt not all of them have a disability rating so they may be happy to know that Congress is considering including them in the VA's Covid-19 vaccination efforts. . 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. .However, if a waiver would have been included in the Covid relief bill Senate rules would have required there that 60 votes in favor of passage would be needed instead of a simple majority of 51. .Spousal and survivor strategies also are important. One example is file-and-suspend, which allows a spouse to claim a spousal benefit while the individual defers claiming. Another is "claim now, claim more later," where the high earner in a married couple claims a spousal benefit based on the lower earning spouse's record, while delaying his or her own retired worker benefit. The idea is to generate higher benefits both for the individual as well as higher survivor benefits for widows. .We want to assure you that we will try to report the facts as we understand them and keep elective politics out of it.