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Around 20% of Medicare beneficiaries are also enrolled in Medicaid and receive help from the program to cover long-term nursing home stays. The BCRA would cut Medicaid by more than 0 billion and cap federal spending on the program. How will you ensure access to nursing home care if the BCRA is adopted, and can you guarantee that older Americans will not be forced out of skilled nursing facilities due to funding cuts?.The 2013 COLA will be announced October 16, 201Based on CPI-W data through June 2012, TSCL's Advisor editor Mary Johnson forecasts that the COLA payable next year will be about 1.4% - 1.5%. That would make it one of the lowest COLAs paid in the 38 years since the COLA became automatic..In recent years a growing number of Medicare beneficiaries are entering hospitals for observation care rather than as inpatients. The number rose 69% in five years according to the most recent national statistics, but over the same period Medicare hospital admissions have declined..Medicaid currently covers about 60 percent of people in nursing homes. But to qualify, seniors in long-term care are required to "spend down" their life savings to the last ,000 and ,000 before Medicaid covers the bill. That won't apply to people younger than 65 under the new rules. Financial eligibility is based on modified adjusted gross income. Medicaid will no longer count how much applicants have in assets like savings and investments for this group of applicants as long as they aren't in long-term care. While that's likely to help more low-income seniors under 65 qualify for Medicaid, TSCL is concerned that it also opens the program to greater potential for gaming the system and fraud..If you were to start your own retirement benefit now, your benefit would be permanently reduced, and you would be giving up potentially tens of thousands of dollars in long-term Social Security income. If you delay starting Social Security as your husband is doing, you receive 100% of your own benefit at your full retirement age. The Social Security Administration has a retirement age calculator to help..Today millions of older women are depending on insufficient Social Security benefits to get them through a retirement that can stretch up to 30 years. Low benefits mean people have to spend more of their retirement savings at a faster pace than anticipated..In 2016 the COLA was zero and Part B premiums rose by 16.1 percent. In 2017 the COLA was just 0.3 percentage point, and Part B premiums rose by 10 percent. "Those premium spikes were due in large part to the cost-shifting effect created when no COLA was payable," Johnson notes..Late last week, lawmakers in the House passed a budget resolution that lays the groundwork for a repeal of the ACA. Now that both chambers of Congress have adopted the resolution, four committees the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and the Senate HELP Committee will begin drafting legislation to repeal the health care law..Firstly, the Senior Security Act will create a Senior Investor Taskforce at the SEC that will exclusively focus on how seniors are being targeted by fraudsters and those who seek to take financial advantage of them. This new Taskforce will identify challenges that senior investors encounter and will identify areas within the SEC or other organizations where senior investors would benefit from changes. The Senior Investor Taskforce will also coordinate with other offices within the Commission and the Elder Justice Coordinating Council. When appropriate, the Taskforce will consult state securities and law enforcement and state insurance regulators to ensure we're all doing as much as we can, at every level of government, to stop this.