About 28% of all Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage Plans. United Health Care, the largest Medicare Advantage insurer in the nation, recently dramatically cut the number of doctors in its plans this year. TSCL remains highly concerned that more plans will follow suit next year as successive cuts kick in..Increasing the payroll tax rate gradually by around 1 percent for both workers and employers. Doing so would amount to an additional 50 cents per week for the average American worker an amount that TSCL feels is reasonable..If Social Security benefits don't increase, while senior costs continue to climb, that would take a big chunk out of the spending power of retirees' Social Security benefits. The majority of Medicare beneficiaries have their Part B premiums automatically deducted from their Social Security benefits, and nearly 7 million have Part D and Part C Medicare Advantage premiums automatically deducted as well. Seniors would end up with considerably less Social Security to live on in 2010 after paying the rising out-of-pocket Medicare costs, leaving less to cover other rising costs.."But there's still time for Congress to pass legislation to provide an emergency COLA," says Cates. TSCL strongly supports legislation that would provide 70 million Americans with a one-time emergency COLA payment of 3.9%. The Seniors and Veterans Emergency Benefits Act was introduced last fall by Senator Elizabeth Warren, and a companion bill was introduced in the House by Representative Tammy Duckworth..Compare your drug and health plan options during the Medicare Open Enrollment period October 15th - December 7th. Does your current drug plan cover expensive new prescriptions? If not, you need to check your other options. Chances are another plan will. Use the Drug and Health Plan Finder at. Make sure you carefully enter every prescription drug you take in order to get a custom comparison of your best drug plan choices. Costs can vary by hundreds, even thousands, of dollars, and you may be very surprised by the savings from switching to a better plan. You can get unbiased help to compare your coverage. Call your Area Agency on Aging and ask for the help of a State Health Insurance Assistance Program counselor, or visit online..One new cosponsor Rep. Michael Michaud signed on to Rep. Peter DeFazio's Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers Act this week. The cosponsor total for this bill is now up to 29..Employment assistance.The idea is to cut government spending on Medicare by limiting the annual growth of the Medicare voucher to the growth of the gross domestic product plus one percentage point. However, for the last 40 years national healthcare spending has exceeded the growth of the gross domestic product by more than two percentage points, and TSCL is highly concerned that the vouchers would rapidly become increasingly inadequate to purchase sufficient coverage or that seniors would face significantly higher premiums. In addition, the CBO recently wrote that the average age and cost of enrollees remaining in the current system would increase over time, and TSCL believes that would lead to far higher premiums for older beneficiaries as well..This year, Medicare Part B premiums are completely offsetting COLAs for many. TSCL recently delivered letters to Congress sharing concerns from supporters around the country who saw no increase in their net benefit in 2018 despite the fact that they are receiving the largest COLA in five years. For example, one supporter of The Senior Citizens League Roland R. of Rockwall, TX was quoted in the letter, saying: "My wife and I were frustrated to see that our Medicare premium increases for Part B and Part D would be greater than the 2% COLA … Medicare is managing to reduce our 'take home' benefits for the third straight year."
