Can you afford a 24% cut in your Social Security check? Can you afford to pay even more than you do now for your health care after you get a 24% cut in your Social Security?.This week, one new cosponsor Rep. Alcee Hastings signed on to Rep. Grace Meng's Notch Fairness Act. The bill now has ten cosponsors. If signed into law, it would provide modest compensation to victims of the Social Security Notch, or those who were born between 1917 and 192Just years before they were set to retire, these individuals learned that they would have significantly lower benefits than originally anticipated. The problem has grown and compounded over time, and TSCL believes that in order to make the program more equitable, some compensation for the injustice should be provided. We enthusiastically support Rep. Meng's Notch Fairness Act, and we were pleased to see one more lawmaker sign on as a cosponsor this week..Accelerate or postpone discretionary medical expenses when feasible. The new health law reduced the amount of unreimbursed medical expenses that you can claim when itemizing the deductions. Taxpayers under the age of 65 can claim deductions for expenses that exceed 10 percent of their adjusted gross income. If you are age 65 and older you may still deduct total medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross temporarily but that ends in 201If your expenses are right on the borderline, you may want to take care of any pending medical services and appointments now, so you can boost your deduction for 201If your expenses were too low to claim the medical expense deduction for 2014, consider postponing discretionary services a few weeks into the New Year..We strongly recommend that you call your dad's health plan and ask for a detailed statement including dates of stays and services billed. Keep careful notes of your call. If you are still unsatisfied, you can get free one-on-one counseling through your state health insurance assistance programs that may be able to help you determine what costs should have been covered and whether you should appeal the charges. Find a program in your area here..The survey found that rather than keep the Social Security status quo, 71% of respondents prefer the following package of changes:.Natural disasters can affect the consumer price index by showing up as higher costs, particularly when gasoline supplies are disrupted, and large numbers of people are forced to evacuate needing shelter and food away from home. But Joe thinks that our government economists may be cooking the books in their methods of measuring price increases..Those participating in The Senior Citizens League's annual senior survey, which is still being conducted, confirm that monthly household expenses made steep increases over the past year, far in excess of the dollar amount that their COLAs increased benefits. The 2.8 percent COLA raised the average Social Security benefit of ,400 by about per month this year. Yet more than 78 percent of survey participants report that their household spending rose by more than .00 per month in 201"When costs climb more rapidly than benefits, retirees must spend down retirement savings more quickly than expected, and those without savings or other retirement income are either going into debt, or going without," Johnson says..The Senior Citizens League thanks the new cosponsors of H.R. 2212, S. 2387, H.R. 1205, and H.R. 190For more information about these and other bills that would improve the lives of older Americans, visit the Bill Tracking section of our website..According to Senator Thune, there is likely to be another major bill providing more money for businesses and others to keep the economy afloat. However, that may not happen until later in June or sometime in July. Obviously, that will use up time that would otherwise have been spent dealing with the other important issues Congress must address.
