Congress Departs Without Passing New Economic Relief Bill and why it Matters to Seniors.Over the years, TSCL surveys indicate that older Americans overwhelmingly oppose totally replacing Medicare with a system of private insurance plans. On the other hand, the design of traditional Medicare alone has a considerably high level of out-of-pocket spending, and no annual out-of-pocket limit. That leaves an important role for private insurers to fill in the gap with Medigap supplements or Medicare Advantage plans..Low inflation is often blamed on the economic recession and slow recovery, but there are other factors. Unbeknownst to most of the public, the federal government has quietly made numerous changes to the methodology used for the nation's inflation measurement - the consumer price index. Politicians claim the changes make the CPI more accurate, but virtually all of the changes since the 1980's have lowered the measured rate of inflation and reduced the growth of Social Security benefits..While Medicare covers emergency room care, unless your father was admitted to the hospital as an inpatient, Medicare Part A may not have covered his hospital stay. If emergency room doctors held your dad "under observation" or as an "outpatient," then his stay was covered under Medicare Part B, and there may have been expensive bills for that hospital stay depending on what other type of insurance your dad had in addition to Medicare. In addition, Medicare has strict rules about the length of stays in the hospital, in order to qualify for limited nursing home coverage for rehabilitation. Medicare does not cover most long - term stays in nursing homes..Changes are looming for Medicare and Social Security. Make your opinion count. Take the monthly poll on TSCL's homepage. We'll announce the results in upcoming issues of this newsletter..Due to your income, you are subject to paying high income premium surcharges for both Part B and Part D drug coverage. The income brackets that determine the amount of your premiums have been adjusted for inflation this year after no adjustments in 2011 through 2019..Those who testified at Wednesday's hearing made several practical recommendations to those on the Subcommittee. Ms. Zahm told lawmakers that administrative law judges would work more effectively with additional support staff. She said: "Give my judges a clerk and two attorneys and we can go to town [on the DI backlog]." Other witnesses suggested common-sense solutions like eliminating arbitrary deadlines that cause confusion for claimants who are not represented by attorneys that would make the application process more straight-forward. Several witnesses also requested more adequate funding for the Social Security Administration. Ms. Disman told the Subcommittee members, "You could certainly say that with more funding we could do more.".You can learn how the earnings test works and exempt amounts by year at:. You can check your earnings record online by setting up a "my Social Security" account. To contact Social Security by phone, call, or visit your local Social Security office..The Internal Revenue Service interpreted the law to allow eligible consumers to receive premium subsidies regardless of whether the exchange was run by their state or by the federal government. Challengers of the law question that interpretation, saying that the law as written clearly directs subsidies to state-run exchanges only. Health law proponents say that lawmakers fully intended that subsidies be offered on all exchanges, regardless of whether they were administered by the states or federal government.
