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If adopted, it would cut .9 trillion from the deficit over the next ten years by implementing a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, around 5 billion of which would come from the health sector. Several proposed changes to the Medicare program are included in the package, including one important measure that would allow the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate prices for high-cost drugs on behalf of Medicare Part D beneficiaries. Doing so would save billions of dollars each year..By using reconciliation, it would mean there would have to billions of dollars cut from current spending programs, including Medicare..A controversial "Medicare" tax on net investment income that was signed into law shortly after passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act is expected to once again come under debate according to The Senior Citizens League. "During the battle over The Affordable Care Act, a new source of funding - a 3.8% Medicare Net Investment tax was enacted - presumably as means to strengthen Medicare funding," says Mary Johnson, a Medicare policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League. "But the truth is those revenues, which the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates to be .5 billion for 2021, never actually made it into the Medicare Part A Trust Fund," she says.".Mo soberly told me that it has been a grueling experience for "a small-town emergency medical worker" who, before COVID, was used to mainly pushing paper, and just going on only a few calls a week for the "random" auto accident or over-dose. Day after grueling day, Mo and his crew have answered calls to hundreds of homes in my county. And sadly, they are still at it. If you haven't gotten one yet, please consider getting a COVID vaccine! Contact your local health department or doctor..This week, seven new cosponsors signed on to the Social Security 2100 Act, bringing the total up to eighty-four. The new cosponsors are: Reps. Luis Gutierrez, Marc Veasey, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chellie Pingree, Joyce Beatty, and Peter DeFazio..Alexandria, VMore than 90 percent of older Americans are likely to be making a secret Christmas wish for the New Year, says The Senior Citizens League. "That's to make ends meet," says TSCL Chairman, Ed Cates. A national survey conducted by TSCL earlier this year found that 98 percent of Social Security recipients participating reported the annual cost-of-living adjustment had increased their Social Security benefits by less than a month in 2014, but 92 percent said their monthly expenses had increased by more than "That disparity between COLAs and rising costs is the 'Grinch that's stealing Christmas' for millions of older Americans this year," Cates says..Hospitals have prioritized rescheduling patients who do not have COVID-19 but have conditions that may deteriorate if they do not get regular care. Patients receiving cancer treatment need to go to regularly scheduled appointments. Doctors are particularly concerned that patients who have heart or lung disease, hypertension, diabetes, and other chronic conditions get back on a routine care schedule..An untested federal and state Medicare and Medicaid demonstration program is raising concerns that it affects too many low–income seniors, and is growing too fast. Enrollment has far exceeded early expectations and both provider, and advocacy groups are warning that its size would be hard to unwind if the demonstration fails to provide quality services and access to medically necessary services..Then, in September, our entire country was appalled when a 32-year-old former hedge fund manager, Martin Shkreli, jacked up the price of Daraprim - a drug used to treat a life-threatening parasitic infection in people with suppressed immune systems like cancer patients and people with HIV/AIDS - from .50 per tablet to 0, overnight.