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All beneficiaries get a notification letter from the Social Security Administration explaining the amount of their benefits and the amount that will be deducted for Part B and any other deductions. "Those with the lowest benefits less than 0 per month in 2020 - are at risk of seeing their Medicare Part B premium consume their entire COLA," Johnson notes..This week, one new cosponsor Rep. Hakeem Jeffries signed on to the Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act. The cosponsor total is now up to one hundred and forty-five. If signed into law, H.R. 1179 would amend current Medicare policy to count hospital stays under "observation status" towards the three-day requirement for skilled nursing care. Currently, those under "observation status" don't qualify for coverage of the benefit, and they are often hit with large, unexpected bills after receiving necessary medical care. TSCL believes the current policy is unfair, and we were pleased to see support grow for H.R. 1179 this week..The President's order halts the collection of Payroll taxes from Sept. 1 through the end of the year. In addition, he instructed the Treasury Department to look into how the government can forgive the deferred tax payment permanently because as things stand right now the taxes must be repaid after the first of the year..Social Security's finances depend largely on payroll taxes, tying the strength of Social Security to the strength of the U.S. economy. The U.S. unemployment rate was more than 13.3% through May. That was worse than the 2009 Great Recession, when the unemployment rate reached a peak of 10.6% in January 20With 20.5 million people out of work, combined with a higher number of new claims for benefits as older unemployed workers turn to Social Security, there will be a significant impact on the finances of the Social Security Trust Funds. The degree of the impact depends on how long it takes to get our economy safely up and running again.."It's a barrage of contributions that accounts for roughly million in campaign giving, distributed via roughly 4,500 checks from the political action committees affiliated with the companies..As we said, TSCL is supportive of intentions of these, and other efforts on the part of both parties to lower prescription drug prices. However, we also have our own concerns..Even when patients do seek treatment at a hospital mainly staffed by doctors in their insurance plans, they might wind up being treated by an out-of-network specialist. Worsening the problem, insurers have narrowed their networks of preferred doctors over the years in hopes of steering patients away from hospitals to lower-cost outpatient facilities and doctors..In our Sept. 26 Update, we told you about the new Drug Discount Card that President Trump had just announced would be available to some seniors. At that time, there were few details about the program because, as one White House official put it, the idea of a drug discount card was a "last-minute thing that is still being worked out.".As part of efforts to strengthen the Social Security system, Congress included the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset in the Social Security Act of 198While intentions were noble, these changes did little to protect the Social Security system. Instead, they unjustly penalized millions of public sector employees.