TSCL is happy to announce that one key piece of legislation gained support in the House of Representatives this week. The Improving Access to Affordable Prescription Drugs Act gained a new cosponsor in Representative Pete Visclosky, bringing the total up to twenty. If signed into law, H.R. 1776 would require the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, allow the importation of prescription drugs from Canada, accelerate the closing of the Part D "doughnut hole," and cap monthly prescription drug expenses at 0, among other things..If you currently have dental insurance, you may want to check with your plan to see what dental services are covered. If you do have some coverage now, consider getting necessary dental work before you start Medicare. You may also want to shop for Medicare Advantage health plan that covers routine dental services, but carefully first compare other costs and coverage for your specific health conditions and prescription needs..Currently the SSA uses all earnings to determine entitlement to benefits, including the earnings for jobs worked illegally. The majority of seniors responding to TSCL surveys on the topic believe that noncitizens should not be allowed to receive Social Security based on illegal work. TSCL agrees. Social Security benefits are determined on earnings and work history, regardless of whether taxes were paid or not. Because those earnings are held by Social Security in an Earnings Suspense file, non-citizens could at some point gain access to benefits based on illegal earnings. TSCL strongly supports legislation that would ban the payment of Social Security based on unauthorized work..Then, in September, our entire country was appalled when a 32-year-old former hedge fund manager, Martin Shkreli, jacked up the price of Daraprim - a drug used to treat a life-threatening parasitic infection in people with suppressed immune systems like cancer patients and people with HIV/AIDS - from .50 per tablet to 0, overnight..Over the past four years, TSCL's surveys have found that about 9 out of 10 people receiving Social Security benefits report that their household spending rose by at least per month during the prior year. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. "Retirees need to plan for large monthly jumps in spending annually over the course of their retirement," Johnson says. In every year since 2014, the largest percentage of those people participating in TSCL annual Senior Surveys reported that their household spending jumped by more than 9 per month. Since 2014 annual COLAs grew a total of just 3.5 percent, averaging less than 0.9 percent per year. One factor in why retirees have such a gap between their COLA and spending is the consumer price index that the government uses to measure inflation and to determine the annual boost. "One would think that the CPI used to calculate COLAs for retirees would be based on seniors' spending patterns, but it is not," says Johnson. Instead, the COLA is determined by the growth in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. Younger working adults spend a far smaller portion of their income on medical costs, which is the fastest growing category of the CPI in most years. On the other hand, younger working adults spend more on transportation and gasoline, categories that have gone down dramatically in recent years. "This tends to understate the inflation experienced by the majority of people receiving Social Security," notes Johnson..The annual COLA is tied to the rise in inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation has been at record lows in most of the seven years since 2009, averaging just 1.2 percent. In the decade prior to 2009, COLAs averaged more than 3 percent. And although low inflation can be helpful to younger wage earners and workers, "it's not always a boon for people receiving Social Security benefits," says Ed Cates, Chairman of TSCL..Quite likely. Age 62 is simple to remember because it's the same for everyone. But figuring out your full retirement age is hard because it differs for every one. It must be looked up online, or you must call the Social Security Administration to confirm it. Only one-out-of three people even know their full retirement age. But your full retirement age, whether it's 66, 66 plus 4 months, or 67, and the amount you can expect at that age, still doesn't get you your maximum benefit! Only half of all retirees even know that waiting until age 70 to claim retirement benefits gets you the maximum amount that you qualify for..On Thursday, the Ways and Means Committee held a long overdue hearing on the Social Security 2100 Act. The bill was introduced by Congressman John Larson in January of this year. A companion bill was introduced in the Senator by Senator Richard Blumenthal. If adopted these bills would strengthen and reform Social Security by providing beneficiaries with a 2 percent benefit increase, would base the cost-of-living on the CPI-E, create a new minimum benefit set 125 percent of the poverty line and cut taxes for beneficiaries. Increase costs to the program would be paid for my applying the payroll tax to income over 400,000 and gradually increase the payroll tax rate to 7.4 percent..The resolution introduced by Rep. Rigell expresses a commitment to two critical issues facing seniors, and TSCL was pleased to lend its support to it this week.
