For information about town hall meetings near you during the spring recess, call the local offices of your elected officials. You can find contact information for your Members of Congress right here..Right now, there are immediate steps we can take to help build a sustainable path toward cheaper drugs for all Americans - and I'd like to highlight two recent bills that could increase transparency and competition as a part of this strategy..Senate Returns to Washington.Late enrollment penalties are not like one-time tax penalties. Under the late enrollment penalty your monthly Part B premium may go up 10% for each full 12-month period that you delayed enrollment, and you pay the higher premiums for the rest of the time you receive Medicare..TSCL on the Hill.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..They are willing to pay more for Social Security, if necessary, to keep the program strong..Want to read more about rising costs? See, The Costs That Are Rising the Fastest for Older Americans, By Doug Whiteman, MoneyWise.com..How would this compare with the "senior" CPI, the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly ? Estimates for TSCL indicate that if the CPI-E were to be used to determine the COLA for 2017 the COLA would be 1.7% - 1.1% higher than COLAs under the CPI-W, but federal poverty levels will rise as well.

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Individuals with incomes above ,000, or couples with incomes above 0,000..Computed tomography or CT scans are diagnostic tests that are covered by Medicare when medically necessary and ordered by your healthcare provider. Medicare most typically covers the tests under Part B when you are an outpatient, or the tests would be covered by Part A if you receive the CT scan as an inpatient during a hospital stay..The difference in drug prices between the two programs is due to two reasons. Under Medicare Part D, the government isn't negotiating drug costs on behalf of beneficiaries, and Part D has no cap on out-of-pocket spending for prescription drugs. The lack of a cap acts as a perverse incentive for drug makers and drug plans to get beneficiaries to use the most expensive drugs, because Medicare reimburses drug plans 80% of the cost in the final catastrophic phase of coverage. The higher the cost of the drug, the more drug plans receive from Medicare. Medicare patients who rely on such medications could owe thousands of dollars out-of-pocket every year for a single drug, even when their Part D plan covers the drug. … Continued

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TSCL questions whether the more widespread use of subjective criteria in disability determinations may be contributing to disability fraud. Recently, 134 people, including retired New York City police officers and firefighters, were charged in one of the largest disability frauds on record. Those indicted were charged with faking mental disabilities, like post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from responding to the 911 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, to obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars in disability benefits..The effect tends to be tempered by the fact that the federal poverty level itself is adjusted for inflation every year, using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers. In most years the CPI-U grows slightly faster than the index used to adjust Social Security benefits, the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. Thus, it tends to keep pace with the COLA. But in 2020, the CPI-U grew more slowly than the COLA, growing just 1% instead of the CPI-W's 1.3%. Thus, SNAP benefits and many other types of benefits were reduced or even eliminated this year for some beneficiaries..Because just one Senator can stall legislation through what is known as a filibuster, it takes 60 votes to pass any bill unless it is through a process called "reconciliation," which then requires only a simple majority of 51. … Continued

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