The Senior Citizens League supports legislation that would provide a more fair and adequate COLA so that seniors living on fixed incomes can better afford rising costs like home heating oil. To learn more, visit..More Means Testing For Medicare: Higher income seniors with incomes of more than ,000 already pay more for their Medicare Part B and Part D premiums. More seniors will pay the higher costs in the future because the income threshold is not adjusted for inflation. President Obama has proposed raising the amounts that higher-income seniors would pay, and proposes new income thresholds that would push seniors into higher premium brackets more quickly..Then, in our Oct. 3 Update we reported that the chairmen of the House Ways and Means Oversight and Health subcommittees had sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting more information about the discount card. Among the questions they were asking was what legal authority is being used to justify the program and how it will be paid for..McCaskill brought her own brother's experience with pharmaceutical companies as an example to illustrate the way companies wine and dine the doctors who prescribe their medications..Small market. The companies controlled drugs through a closed distribution system or specialty pharmacy where the drugs could not be obtained through normal channels or other means..Increasing the payroll tax rate. Survey results have also shown strong support for a gradual increase in the payroll tax rate from 6.2% to 7.4%. An increase of that size would amount to an extra 50 cents per week for the average worker an amount that most feel is fair and practical..You can also sign up to receive our monthly newsletter that includes tons of helpful information regarding current legislation and policy affecting you. The newsletter also features a "Congressional Corner," where various Representatives and Senators express their thoughts on issues important to seniors..2013 Medicare & You, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, October, 2012..The reception by the Members of Congress was phenomenal. Meetings were held with Rep. David Davis, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Rep. Doug Lamborn, Rep. John Sarbanes, Rep. Dan Boren, and Rep. Bruce Braley.

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The Senior Citizens League is predicting another record-low Social Security cost-of-living adjustment in 2020 despite skyrocketing prescription drug prices and home heating costs. Will you cosponsor the Fair COLA for Seniors Act, which would make the COLA more adequate for Social Security beneficiaries?.Under current law the Social Security COLA is calculated based on the spending patterns of younger working adults using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. But older consumers spend a bigger portion of their household budgets on healthcare and housing, two categories that have been increasing more rapidly in recent years. "Medicare Part B premiums are the fastest growing cost most retirees will ever have," notes Johnson. "But those costs are not even surveyed under the CPI-W or reflected in today's COLA," she says.."But the evidence on whether Biogen's treatment, called aducanumab, is effective is, at best, mixed; the FDA approved it this week over the objections of its own advisory committee. And with a preliminary announced price of nearly ,000 annually per patient, covering the treatment could cost upward of 0 billion a year, mostly to Medicare, which would almost double the program's drug spending. Patients themselves could be on the hook for thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs." … Continued

Health Costs Issue Brief Data Note Americans Challenges Health Care Costs

The age at which individuals become eligible for full, un-reduced Social Security benefits is rising. Your full retirement age is based on the year when you were born and, for people born in 1960 and later, the full retirement age is 6The earliest age at which you can claim a retirement benefit is 6However, claiming benefits prior to your full retirement age comes with expensive trade-offs. It's unlikely to be your best choice if your aim is to maximize your retirement income over the long haul..We encourage you to attend a town hall, and invite others you know. The future of our retirement and our healthcare benefits rests in our hands..House Subcommittee Holds "Doc Fix" Hearing … Continued

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