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Only last year the Comptroller General of the United States, David Walker, warned Congress about this very thing saying, "Doing nothing, means that we are going to head to a precipitous decline in benefits. Remember the Notch Baby problem? This would be a Notch Baby problem magnified multiple times and it should not be allowed to happen.".The more you learn about the COLA, however, the more the anemic annual boosts of our past decade raise questions. The very first COLA ever paid was 77%. No, you read that right, this is not a typo. It became payable in 1950, one year before I was born, and a full ten years after Ida May Fuller received the nation's very first Social Security benefit check for .54 - the equivalent of 0.90 today..I am committed to working with both Democrats and Republicans to take common sense, reasonable steps to strengthen Medicare and make sure it is strong for both current and future seniors. These sensible reforms include implementing electronic medical records, improving coordination of healthcare services, and continuing efforts to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from the system..Finally, because it started in China and it is a new strain of flu, health care officials in the U.S. are still learning about it and uncertainty exists..I get my Medicare health plan under my wife's company insurance. My wife is not on Medicare yet, she also gets her health insurance through her former employer. We are both retired and live on a fixed income. When does she need to enroll in Medicare?."There appears to be a broad agreement on the types of healthcare policies that should be in the package, like closing the Medicaid coverage gap and adding dental and vision benefits to Medicare, but details are still being ironed out by committee staff and congressional offices and nothing is certain.".On Tuesday, just hours before a 21 percent pay cut for physicians was set to take effect, the Senate approved legislation to repeal and replace the SGR the flawed formula that determines reimbursement rates for doctors who treat Medicare patients. The bill, which was passed by the House two weeks ago, was adopted on Tuesday with a vote of 92-Shortly thereafter, President Obama released a statement saying that he "will be proud to sign it into law.".The problem is that most retired individuals don't have 0,000 to set aside just for healthcare. According to the Employees Benefit Research Institute, the average person in their 60s who has contributed to a 401 for more than 30 years only has about 5,000 for all retirement expenses. But that's just counting the people who do have retirement accounts - and millions do not. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 60% of all U.S. households have no retirement savings at all..TSCL enthusiastically supports Rep. Garamendi's CPI-E Act, and we thank him for his leadership on this important issue. In the months ahead, we look forward to working with his office to build support for the bill. In the meantime, we urge our members and supporters to contact their elected officials to request their support for H.R. 125For contact information, click HERE.