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If your employer has less than 20 employers, beware. By law Medicare is the "first payer" of health insurance policies of small companies. This means you and your wife will need to enroll in Medicare in order for your healthcare claims to be covered. If you work for a company with less than 20 employees and try to file a claim, your insurer can deny it because Medicare is supposed to pay since you are Medicare-eligible. Because you and your wife are over 65, the government considers you Medicare-eligible, whether you have enrolled or not..Your answers to TSCL's Annual Senior Survey makes a difference! TSCL shares the results with Members of Congress and the media..While the additional payroll tax went directly to the Part A Trust Fund, the 3.8% "Medicare" net investment tax was never transferred to Part A. It wound up going straight into the U.S. General Fund where it could be appropriated for any government spending..The part of Social Security that pays old age and survivor benefits is projected to become insolvent in just 14 years. The Social Security fund that pays disability benefits is projected to last longer until 206But that fund is much smaller and even if money were diverted from it to the old age fund, it would only last for an additional year..Conservatives and budget hawks have long sought to roll back large government programs like Medicare and Medicaid to rein in the debt..The Social Security taxable maximum is tied to the wage index, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, the limit on the amount of wages that can be taxed has not kept up with the growth of wages of the most highly paid workers. Because wages for high - income earners are growing faster than for other workers, the taxable share of the nation's earnings subject to Social Security payroll taxes is falling - from 90 percent in 1983 to 82 percent in 201The trend is forecast to continue, with the CBO projecting the share of earnings subject to payroll taxation to drop to below 78 percent by 2026..Tightening eligibility requirements, including requiring disability applicants to have worked six of the past ten years, and modestly increasing the age at which it becomes easier to qualify for benefits from forty-five to fifty..The good news is that key members of Congress now say they will push for surprise billing legislation to be part of the next bill that deals with the coronavirus emergency..TSCL encourages its members and supporters to attend these events and to ask questions of their elected officials about important Social Security and Medicare issues, like the following four…