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TSCL supports a special provision of the Senate bill introduced by Senators Orrin Hatch and Marco Rubio. The provision would ban earnings from jobs worked illegally from being used to determine entitlement to Social Security benefits and for calculating the amount of initial benefits legislation that TSCL and TSCL's grassroots members have long supported. But the Senate bill does not close a related loophole in current law that allows older immigrants who received "non-work" Social Security numbers issued prior to 2004 to claim Social Security benefits without having ever received work authorization..What to Do When Your Doctor Prescribes an Expensive Medication that Your Insurance Doesn't Cover.The IRS is warning retirees to get an idea of how much income tax you may owe for 2018, and determine whether you need to make an estimated payment by January 15th, 201Recent changes to the tax law lowered individual rates and tax brackets slightly. The standard deduction almost doubled from ,350 to ,000, and single taxpayers older than 65 can deduct an additional ,600. On the other hand, personal exemptions have been eliminated. Tax advisors say that on average, most retirees will likely see a decrease in the taxes they owe, but individual circumstances vary greatly..President thinks about taking money from Social Security to pay for economic stimulus.Medicare fraud, waste, and abuse costs about billion a year. What type of measures do you support to put a stop to this loss of Medicare finances?.Second, Concentrating on High-value Alzheimer's Needs to Get to an End Act of 2018 ​ gained one new cosponsor this week in Senator Chris Van Hollen. The cosponsor total is now up to four. If adopted, S. 2387 would direct the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to create programs that would promote early identification of Alzheimer's disease, improve support for family caregivers, and provide continuous care for those battling many forms of dementia..However, TSCL does oppose two provisions that lawmakers included in the package to offset the cost of the 0 billion bill: one provision would increase Medicare Part B and Part D premiums for wealthier seniors, and the second one would create a new 0 deductible for supplemental Medigap plans. Both provisions will require seniors to pay more for their health care, and TSCL feels strongly that seniors should not be required to cover the cost of the poor policy-making decisions that were made by Congress nearly twenty years ago..It turned out that Flo was working for the deep pocketed pharmaceutical industry. They successfully used her ad to sink major legislation proposed by President Bill Clinton to add a voluntary drug benefit to Medicare. It wasn't until 2003 that the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act, which added the Part D drug benefit to Medicare, was finally signed into law by President George W. Bush. But, although the bill provided a drug benefit, it specifically prohibited Medicare from negotiating prices with drug manufacturers, even though Medicare negotiates prices for almost every other service and for Part B drugs. High drug prices put patient's lives at risk every day when people can't afford to fill their prescriptions..Some of the most talked-about plans using a "chained" consumer price index to calculate annual cost-of-living adjustments, cutting the payroll tax, and reducing benefits for people who are currently retired or nearing retirement would devastate many of the most vulnerable seniors.