This week, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees released their annual reports on the financial standing of the two programs. In addition, the Supreme Court announced its decision on the immigration orders President Obama released back in 2014..TSCL is working for legislation that would eliminate the one-time gain "means test," and supports efforts that would repeal determination of Medicare benefits based on income. To learn more, please visit..Ideally the Obama Administration should have the capacity to update consumers' subsidy information. But by late summer, they had not yet gotten that part of the system built. Even if you were to receive the same amount of premium subsidy that you received this year, that's likely to cause you problems. Here's why:.If you receive a call claiming to be your utility company and feel pressured for immediate payment or personal information, hang up the phone and call the customer service number on your utility bill..Visit the customer service desk and request a refund of the overcharge. If you paid by credit card, make sure you have the card with you for a credit. This may resolve the problem. If it doesn't, contact your drug plan, tell them the problem, and request forms to file for claim reimbursement..Accelerate or postpone discretionary medical expenses when feasible. The new health law reduced the amount of unreimbursed medical expenses that you can claim when itemizing the deductions. Taxpayers under the age of 65 can claim deductions for expenses that exceed 10 percent of their adjusted gross income. If you are age 65 and older you may still deduct total medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross temporarily but that ends in 201If your expenses are right on the borderline, you may want to take care of any pending medical services and appointments now, so you can boost your deduction for 201If your expenses were too low to claim the medical expense deduction for 2014, consider postponing discretionary services a few weeks into the New Year..If you don't want diabetic testing supplies delivered to your home, you can go to any local store that is enrolled in Medicare and buy them. Ask if the local store accepts "assignment" or the Medicare approved amount as payment in full. If they do not, the store may charge more than the 20 percent coinsurance and any unmet deductible. Shop around. Call your local stores and find out what your copayment would be first if you decide to pick up supplies instead..Medicare costs are continuing to escalate in 2010, but unless Congress takes immediate action, it's all but certain that seniors won't receive an annual cost-of-living adjustment to help offset the increase next year. The Senior Citizens League strongly endorses new legislation introduced by Representative Walter Jones, H.R. 3557, to provide an emergency COLA increase for 2010..Legislation introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and a similar bill introduced by Representative John Larson would provide a boost in Social Security benefits by about to for most recipients, would increase cost of living adjustments by basing the increase on the CPI-E. It would pay for the expanded benefits and restore long - term solvency to the program by making the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes. Under current law those earning more than 8,500 pay nothing on earnings over that amount.
