Reduce overpayments, fraud and abuse in the system - increase the frequency of continuing disability reviews. A recent audit found that the Social Security Administration had overpaid nearly half of the people receiving disability benefits over the past decade. Continuing disability reviews are conducted periodically to determine if disability recipients still remain eligible for benefits. According to the Social Security Advisory Board, every spent on reviews returns in savings to the program..Incredibly, according to a legal opinion obtained by TSCL in 2009, Totalization with Mexico may give Mexican immigrants greater rights to U.S. Social Security benefits than U.S. senior citizens currently enjoy. The proposed U.S./Mexico Totalization Agreement would be based on a contractual promise made by the United States government for the benefit of individual Mexican workers who qualify for U.S. Social Security benefits under the terms of that agreement..That means the trust fund reserves money that came out of your paychecks to finance your earned benefits would become unusable by the Social Security and Medicare programs. Here's how that could lead to benefit cuts….Two years is a long time for even Members of Congress to go without a paycheck giving them a good incentive to bury the budget hatchet. The government will again reach the federal budget limit later this fall. A group of Republican senators have been meeting privately with the White House to lay the groundwork for a deficit reduction agreement. President Obama included a proposal to cut Social Security cost-of-living-adjustments in his fiscal year 2014 budget. GOP leaders are trying to work out a compromise on a new spending agreement. TSCL is fighting COLA cuts and visiting Members of Congress. We urge you to send letters to the editor of your local media to educate the public on the importance of the COLA and to use examples of rising costs that illustrate the erosion in the buying power of your benefits..Some say that if workers pay into the system, then they should be entitled to benefits. But TSCL and the overwhelming majority of seniors who have responded to TSCL's surveys believe that Social Security benefits should not be based on illegal earnings and work credits. Congress is considering big changes to both Social Security and Medicare that will result in reducing benefits and higher costs for retirees in the future. TSCL supports measures that would prohibit Social Security from using earnings for jobs worked without legal authorization to be counted towards entitlement to benefits..In response to concerns over high prescription drug prices, I have introduced two bills in this Congress to lower the cost of prescription drugs. H.R. 448, the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Act, would authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate for lower drug prices on behalf of Medicare Part D beneficiaries. H.R. 447, the Affordable and Safe Prescription Drug Importation Act, would allow qualifying prescription drugs manufactured at FDA-inspected facilities of licensed Canadian sellers to be imported into the United States. These solutions, along with other bills introduced by my colleagues in the House and Senate, will help to fundamentally change the playing field, helping to lower prices for patients while reining in excessive drug company profits..The Social Security Trustees now say that benefit costs are exceeding the cash revenues coming in. Do you think changes are needed, and if so, what?.Last week a group of 10 moderate Democrats delayed a procedural vote for their party's reconciliation bill, which is the expensive bill containing the President's program to rebuild the U.S. infrastructure. The fear is that some of those same moderates may again band together to blunt the drug-pricing provisions going into the reconciliation package..The Lower Drug Costs Now Act contains additional provisions to combat relentless prices increases. For example, the bill would expand Medicare Part D benefits to include dental, vision, and hearing coverage. And it would establish a new ,000 out-of-pocket limit on prescription drug costs. I'm proud to be a cosponsor of this bill, because American seniors shouldn't be subjected to unfair price hikes on lifesaving medications - especially when other industrialized countries are paying lower prices for identical drugs.
