This week, President Obama sent his fiscal 2016 budget blueprint to Congress, and The Senior Citizens League saw one new cosponsor sign on to the Notch Fairness Act..Access to the plans is highly variable. While some areas of the country have dozens of Medicare Advantage plans, rural counties often have very limited choices, or as little as just one insurer. Frequently, older and sicker enrollees discover that Medicare Advantage plan out-of-pocket spending due to chronic health conditions, or a hospitalization can be much higher than with a Medigap plan. Medigap supplements cover most, or even all, out of pocket costs..Social Security recipients will get 2% cost-of-living adjustment effective January 201But despite it being the largest increase in five years, the news is being met with frustration from millions of retiree households who won't see any of the raise, primarily due to rising Medicare Part B costs..This week, Congressman John Garamendi introduced legislation that would base Social Security cost-of-living adjustments on a more accurate measure of inflation. In addition, The Senior Citizens League announced its support for a bill that would make the Social Security program more equitable for public servants..On Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education approved a 6.8 billion fiscal 2015 spending bill by a voice vote. The bill provides funding to a wide range of health and education programs, and it also covers the administrative expenses of Social Security and Medicare. The Labor-HHS-Education bill is the largest domestic appropriations bill, accounting for nearly one-third of all non-defense discretionary spending..Highly recommended reading: "How To Make Your Money Last, The Indispensible Retirement Guide," Jane Bryant Quinn, January, 2016..Efforts are quietly underway to lay the groundwork for a far-reaching fiscal deal that involves Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and Medicare benefits. White House officials and Senate Republicans have met in a series of private sessions in recent months. In his fiscal year 2014 budget, President Obama proposed reducing the growth in COLAs as well as raising Medicare premiums, reducing benefits of higher income seniors and increasing the Medicare eligibility age. Everything is still on the table, the pressure point being the debt limit. The government is expected to hit the debt limit ceiling the statutory borrowing limit - sometime this fall.."For this group of Medicare beneficiaries, this will also be the largest Medicare Part B increase in five years after premiums remained relatively flat since 2013," says Mary Johnson, a Social Security and Medicare Policy Analyst for The Senior Citizens League. The jump in premiums is due to a special provision of law known as "hold harmless," which protected millions of Social Security recipients from reductions to their Social Security benefits in 2016 and 2017, when then the annual - cost - of - living adjustments were zero and just 0.3 percent, respectively..computer, or running a successful business.
