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In making the 1977 changes, Congress, wanting to avoid an abrupt change, allowed persons born from 1917 through 1921 to use a special transitional benefit formula or the new 1977 formula, whichever would yield the higher of the two benefits. The transition benefit formula never delivered the promised benefit protection, however, because it did not yield a higher benefit amount. Instead, the new benefit formula most often yielded the higher amount..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.."Americans Make Hard Choices on Social Security: A Survey With Trade-Off Analysis," National Academy of Social Insurance, October 2014..Neighborhood, and safety concerns. Does your friend still feel safe living alone? Are there suspicious strangers stopping by asking for jobs like yard work or repaving her driveway? People who live alone are frequent targets of scam and thieves..Medical costs are a big expense in retirement that many retirees tend to underestimate. But healthcare isn't always the biggest item. Housing takes the biggest chunk of the household budget in retirement. Here are five of the biggest housing expenses to whittle down in 2014:.Sudden price spikes in older drugs are putting patients at risk of going without vital medicine. A new report by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging uncovered an insidious business model that's leading to monopoly pricing power and astronomical price increases..Those who testified at Wednesday's hearing made several practical recommendations to those on the Subcommittee. Ms. Zahm told lawmakers that administrative law judges would work more effectively with additional support staff. She said: "Give my judges a clerk and two attorneys and we can go to town [on the DI backlog]." Other witnesses suggested common-sense solutions like eliminating arbitrary deadlines that cause confusion for claimants who are not represented by attorneys that would make the application process more straight-forward. Several witnesses also requested more adequate funding for the Social Security Administration. Ms. Disman told the Subcommittee members, "You could certainly say that with more funding we could do more.".A provision of a recently enacted government spending bill restricts Part B premium increases in 202The bill caps the Part B premium increase for next year at the 2020 amount plus 25% of the difference between the 2020 amount and a preliminary amount for 202The preliminary amount would be calculated the same way that it would have been without the bill but would prevent dramatic increases that may have occurred as a result of Medicare Part B premiums growing when the COLA is so low..Three Key Bills Gain Support