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According to TSCL's research, Barbara is correct. Since 2000, Social Security benefits have lost 30 percent of their buying power due to inaccurate COLAs, and in the last year alone, they have lost 7 percent. This loss of purchasing power has occurred because Social Security COLAs are based on the spending patterns of young, urban workers not the spending patterns of retirees..As you have experienced, one of the biggest appeals of Medicare Advantage plans are low, or sometimes no, premiums. However, you would still have deductibles to satisfy and co-payments for most, if not every service. In addition, plans are allowed to charge you an out-of-pocket maximum up to ,700 in 2019, an amount that varies and tends to grow each year. Under Medigap, your premiums are higher and, depending on the policy, can increase annually. On the other hand, covered out-of-pocket costs are minimal to nothing. Medicare Advantage is more affordable when you are healthy, but can cost significantly more per year if you require a lot of healthcare services..If you are in for observation, Medicare considers you an outpatient, and your services are covered under Medicare Part B. Generally, this means you will have a co-payment for each individual outpatient service. In some cases, your total copayments for all services may even be more than the inpatient hospital deductible. In addition, most of the prescription drugs you get in an outpatient setting aren't covered by Part B and you would need to check with your drug plan to find out whether the drugs would be covered..Even though the rate of inflation is dropping, a proposal that would switch to a more slowly-growing CPI to calculate COLA continues to be pushed by proponents on both sides. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the "chained" CPI would reduce the federal budget deficit by more than 0 billion in the first ten years. It would do so by cutting the growth in a host of federal benefit programs, including military retirement in addition to Social Security, as well as increasing revenues if used to index the tax code..By Jessie Gibbons, Senior Policy Analyst.The object is to provide at least 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by January 202In most of the agreements with the drug companies, the Department of Health and Human Services says the vaccines will be given to the American people for free if part of a vaccine campaign. Once the vaccines are approved, the program is intended to quickly deliver them to as many people as possible. The federal government has said it will cover the cost of delivery, but health-care providers can charge to administer the vaccine..Volunteer and civic opportunities.The Social Security Fairness Act, if signed into law, would amend the Social Security Act by repealing the government pension offset and the windfall elimination provision. TSCL believes that these two provisions unfairly reduce the earned Social Security benefits of millions of teachers, firefighters, peace officers, and other state or local government employees each year. We were pleased to see support grow for the Social Security Fairness Act this week..The problem of how our government calculates price inflation affects more than just Social Security benefits. The consumer price index is also used to adjust many federal programs and other aspects of our laws such as the federal poverty limits and the federal tax code. By growing more slowly, fewer people qualify for safety net programs, or the federal tax code exemptions become less generous over time, and taxpayers pay more in taxes.