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The other good news for seniors last week was the apparent victory of TSCL and other groups to stop the payroll tax cut. President Trump has been demanding the cut for months, and he had stated that he would not sign any new pandemic relief legislation if the payroll tax cut were not included..This cost shift hits includes retirees with the lowest incomes. Specifically it hits their state Medicaid budgets that pay Part B premiums for low-income Medicare beneficiaries - about 19% of all Medicare recipients. If Medicare Part B premiums go up by more than .40 per month in 2021, that would add yet another fiscal shock to state budgets that are already strained to the limit due to the coronavirus pandemic..Patients and their families want to know if the medication will help slow the progression of cognitive decline, especially in view of the serious side effects it can cause, but doctors have no definitive answer yet. The rate and progression of cognitive decline varies widely among people who have started experiencing memory and thinking problems. Thus, it is difficult to quantify how much of a difference the drug would make for a given patient..According to the Congressional Research Service, older noncitizens who were assigned a Social Security number before January 1, 2004, are not required to have ever received authorization to work in the United States at any point to qualify for Social Security benefits. In other words, those individuals may have worked illegally their entire career and may still file a claim for Social Security, and all their illegal earnings will be counted..In the months before the deal was reached, two Congressional Committees called upon organizations, advocates and other stakeholders to offer their ideas for strengthening the program's finances. TSCL submitted a set of recommendations in August, and then in September, we met with key aides on the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee to discuss our proposal in detail..Like Senators Klobuchar, McCain, and Grassley, TSCL enthusiastically supports efforts by the administration to reduce prescription drug costs, and we hope to see the White House move forward on executive actions that would allow for prescription drug importation. In the meantime, we will continue to advocate on Capitol Hill for legislation like the Safe and Affordable Drugs from Canada Act and the Affordable and Safe Prescription Drug Importation Act, both of which would go a long way in reducing prescription drug costs for older Americans..While the legislation made some changes to Social Security and did not cut benefits of any current retirees, it did end a complicated benefit claiming strategy known as "file and suspend" for people very close to retirement. Although the legislation closes an unintended "loophole," the strategy was one of the few means married couples had to maximize their payouts. A similar provision was contained in Obama's 2015 fiscal year budget and was estimated to cut Social Security costs by as much as .5 billion annually..TSCL is fighting the plan to chain down COLAs. Indeed, seniors need a COLA that more adequately protects the buying power of Social Security, and TSCL supports H.R. 776, the Guaranteed 3% COLA Act, introduced by Representative Eliot Engel..With unemployment still 5.4%, and less payroll tax revenue to finance the benefits of swelling Social Security rolls, how is the program's financing faring during our 2021 economic recovery? The Social Security Trustees are expected to soon release a much-anticipated annual report that gives us our first real glimpse of how the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic affected Social Security's retirement, survivors and disability programs in 2020.