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Congress recently ended two Social Security claiming strategies that helped couples maximize their retirement income. The strategies being eliminated allowed individuals to claim a spousal benefit while their own retirement benefits continued to grow. The "file and suspend" option is no longer available for people who will be younger than age 66 on April 30, 201Those older than age 66 on that date are grandfathered in and still able to use the claiming strategy. If you and your husband won't be 66 until later in the year, your husband would not be able to file and suspend as planned..The federal government remained partially closed this week for the fifth straight week. It remains the longest government shutdown in United States history, and at the time of writing this week's legislative update, only minor progress had been made towards a bipartisan deal to end it..For frequent updates on the status of the spending bill, visit our pages on Facebook or Twitter..Seniors like your husband who are 65 and older, and enrolled in Medicare, are not affected by the new health insurance coverage requirements that become effective January 1, 201But big changes are coming to health insurance coverage for about 62 million seniors age 50 through 64 who are not yet enrolled in Medicare..Under Medicare Part D, the government does not negotiate prices like it does for doctors' or hospital fees. Drug prices are established by the private insurers who run Part D drug plans. Those prices are based on what the plans negotiate with drug manufacturers and what drug plans want to make on the drugs in order to operate at a profit. Under current law, however, even when drug plans negotiate a rebate, the law does not require that plans pass the savings along to consumers..The Social Security Act requires the President to submit to Congress the text of totalization agreements and a report that includes the estimated number of individuals who would be affected and the estimated financial impact of the agreement on Social Security. Nevertheless the documents released to TSCL in December of 2006 supplied only an incomplete five-year cost estimate..By Representative Cheri Bustos.The suppressed growth in Social Security benefits not only creates ongoing benefit adequacy issues for retirees, but also Medicare budget problems when the COLA is not sufficient to cover rising Part B premiums for large numbers of beneficiaries. When the dollar amount of the annual Medicare Part B premium increase is greater than the dollar amount of an individual's annual cost of living adjustment, the Social Security benefits of about 70 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are protected by the hold-harmless provision in the Social Security Act. The Medicare Part B premium of those individuals is reduced to prevent their net Social Security benefits from being lower than the year before..Social Security Made Simple: Social Security Retirement Benefits and Related Planning Topics Explained in 100 Pages or Less, Mike Piper, February 2017.