News

Addressing the Part A shortfall will be particularly difficult and contentious for everyone. To bring greater solvency to the HI trust fund, lawmakers will be faced with the politically unpalatable choices of reducing Medicare spending, which could include requiring that Medicare recipients pay more for their coverage and increasing the tax revenues received by Medicare. Congress last addressed Medicare Part A finances in the 2010 Affordable Care Act which, among other things, required hospitals to become more efficient in their delivery of care, while requiring that higher income workers pay a higher Medicare payroll tax rate..Enrollment in the demonstration program far exceeds early target of 1–2 million beneficiaries set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If all 26 state proposals are approved, approximately 3 million dual–eligible beneficiaries, about 40 percent of seniors who receive both Medicare and Medicaid, would be automatically enrolled into new managed–care plans..That said, logic says we may be in for some pretty big swings in the prices of certain items - such as gasoline. Especially troubling for everyone are steep increases in the cost of meats, poultry, processed fish and seafood, milk, fruits and vegetables. We are spending a lot more than usual trying to maintain a nutritious diet, and this has been going on for months..How many members does TSCL have?.June 2006.The news media has me confused regarding what is included in the CPI. I understand, according to the media, that the CPI does not include food or fuel. I wondered how that could be since they would be two of the largest items in the CPI?.job..This week, five new cosponsors signed on to Rep. Mike McIntyre's Notch Fairness Act, bringing the total up to seventeen. The new cosponsors are: Reps. William Enyart, Betty McCollum, Collin Peterson, Don Young, and Jim Himes. If signed into law, Rep. McIntyre's bill would provide modest compensation to Notch babies, or those who receive lower Social Security benefits because they were born between the years 1917 and 192TSCL believes that some compensation for this injustice should be provided, and the Notch Fairness Act would do just that..TSCL is hopeful that Congress will provide the Social Security Administration with the funding and staffing necessary to make progress on reducing the DI backlog. As Ranking Member John Larson said at Wednesday's hearing, "[A backlog of] six hundred days is flat-out unacceptable." In the coming weeks, TSCL will provide the Social Security Subcommittee with policy recommendations. We will summarize them here in the Legislative News section of our website after they are submitted to the Subcommittee for review.