There are better and more fair choices for indexing the COLA. The BLS also measures the price change experience of All Urban Consumers which covers about 88% of the U.S. population including retirees as well as younger people, and it even maintains a "senior-specific" experimental CPI, the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, that our government has quietly tinkered with since 1983, but has never used to calculate the COLA..President Trump recently signed an executive order intended to change Medicare by expanding the role of Medicare Advantage - the private insurance alternative to Medicare. Medicare Advantage plans have been growing in popularity in recent years enrolling about one third of the nation's 61 million Medicare enrollees..We are closely watching how the foreign drug index would be structured and evaluating how prices would be adjusted. We are highly concerned that a greater portion of the high cost of these drugs that are administered in doctors offices and clinics could wind up getting shifted to Medicare patients either in the form of higher co-pays and co-insurance, or higher premiums.."The Social Security Notch: An Economic Analysis," John Haldi, The Senior Citizens League, October 2002..TSCL will be keeping a close eye on this subject because we know that so many seniors and their families are desperately hoping there will be some new breakthrough that will effectively treatment Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. But the cost of this drug is so expensive, and it could have a major impact on the Medicare budget that already is in critical financial condition..We strongly recommend that you call your dad's health plan and ask for a detailed statement including dates of stays and services billed. Keep careful notes of your call. If you are still unsatisfied, you can get free one-on-one counseling through your state health insurance assistance programs that may be able to help you determine what costs should have been covered and whether you should appeal the charges. Find a program in your area here..As originally introduced, the bill tied all income taxes paid on Social Security benefits to the Social Security Trust Fund, and none to the Medicare Trust Fund. Instead, the bill specified that revenues destined for the Medicare Trust Fund would come from general revenues, in an amount equal to those that the trust fund was otherwise estimated to receive from the taxation of Social Security benefits..The survey found that rather than keep the Social Security status quo, 71% of respondents prefer the following package of changes:.The goal is to prevent fraud and combat identity theft by removing the Social Security numbers from cards and using a unique, randomly assigned number instead. The new cards, which contain a combination of numbers and uppercase letters, will be automatically mailed to all Medicare beneficiaries. There is nothing people need to do to obtain the cards.
