TSCL is non-partisan and we are listening! This is exactly the time when your voice counts the most. Please take time now to participate in TSCL's 2020 Senior Survey. .TSCL has been successful in gaining co-sponsors for legislation to address Notch reform. The Notch Fairness Act, introduced in House and Senate by Representative Mike McIntyre (NC-17) and Senator David Vitter (LA) would provide Notch Babies born 1917 through 1926 their choice of ,000 paid in four annual installments, or an improved monthly benefit. As of June 30, seventeen Members of Congress had signed on as co-sponsors. One new cosponsor said he was signing on to The Notch Fairness Act in honor of his father a Notch baby who recently passed away. .TSCL believes much more stringent measures are needed to protect Social Security and SSI programs from document fraud. TSCL supports legislation that would ban the use of unauthorized earnings for determining entitlement to Social Security benefits. In addition, TSCL supports stronger penalties for the use of fraudulent documents for obtaining federal benefits, including SSI. .If you take one or more prescriptions, you may be shocked to learn how much you can save by comparing plans based on the prescriptions you use and switching drug plans, when you find a better match. This is an important financial habit to get into EVERY year. Drug plans routinely raise premiums and co-pays, and invariably what your best choice was in 2006 no longer holds true today. Although everyone's savings experience will be different based on the particular prescriptions they take, consider these cases from my files**: .However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) refused to bring the bill up in the Senate for debate or a vote. As a result, Congressional leaders have been struggling over the past few weeks to come up with legislation to deal with those issues to help those Americans who have been hurt so badly by the virus and the horrible economy that has resulted. .Seventy-eight percent of the prescriptions ordered by one Florida physician were for Schedule II drugs. For one beneficiary, this physician prescribed a 605-day supply of morphine, a 52day supply of oxycodone, a 460 - day supply of fentanyl, and a 34day supply of hydromophone. .That has never been truer than in this Congress. In trying to craft the new legislation to improve Medicare benefits and lower drug prices, it turns out it's not just Democrat vs. Republican, it's also Senate vs. House, Democrat vs. Democrat, and to a lesser extent, Republican vs. Republican. .Estimate healthcare cost increases of at least 7% to 10% a year. Recently there has been news of a slowdown in healthcare costs. While that's good, overall Medicare costs still increased about 6 percent and in the past two decades the rate of increase was often about 10 percent per year. To keep a lid on your costs, make sure you compare health and drug plans annually during the Medicare Open Enrollment period that starts October 15th and ends December 7th every year. Switch when you can find a better plan. .There's no need for such radical changes to the system in order to preserve Social Security for future generations. The Social Security system can be made solvent for generations to come by adopting some of the relatively modest policy changes proposed by the Social Security Trustees. We certainly shouldn't undermine the entire Social Security program with some harebrained privatization scheme that bankrupts Social Security in the short run and offers no guarantee of decent benefits in the long run.