"The Senior Citizens League believes that as retirees and disabled people live longer, thousands of older Americans like Susan and her husband are working hard to make ends meet while at the same time providing care and support to aging family members and disabled adult children, says TSCL Chairman Ed Cates. The Senior Citizens League recently endorsed The Credit For Caring Act, legislation that would provide a tax credit for caregiving expenses..Under traditional Medicare with Medigap, you have greater freedom to select providers and to travel and still get coverage. Medigap is the better choice for people who divide their time between homes in two different states, or who like to travel outside the U.S. Several Medigap plans cover foreign travel emergencies. On the other hand under many Medicare Advantage plans, you would need to follow your plan rules to get in-network care and would be more limited to specific geographic areas. If you join a Medicare HMO and then have a medical emergency in other part of the country where your plan does not operate you would foot 100% of the medical bill..Medicare fraud, waste, and abuse costs about billion a year. What type of measures do you support to put a stop to this loss of Medicare finances?.Questions To Ask At Your Next Town Hall.This is a tough decision, for which you need independent advice from someone other than the marketing agent of a MA plan. TSCL strongly recommends that you contact your area agency on aging or senior services department and ask for one-on-one counseling available through your State Health Insurance Assistance Program. The service is available at no charge..The threat among seniors of going without nourishing meals, especially those who are older and depend on Social Security for the majority of their income, like many Notch Babies, is very real. In addition to the cognitive and health problems that interfere with good nutrition as seniors age, the national median income of people over 65 is only ,75About one-in-seven seniors has little money left over for food after paying basic monthly expenses like housing, utility, and healthcare costs..Do I Have To Give Up My Current Healthcare Coverage To Go On Medicare?.The standard monthly Medicare Part B premium, which covers doctors and outpatient services, will increase by .10 from 5.50 in 2019, to 4.60 in 2020. At the same time, the COLA will increase an average Social Security benefit of ,460 by only .40. After deduction for the Part B premium, that would leave just .30 per month for someone with average benefits to cover all other rising costs, including other rising Medicare premiums for prescription drugs or supplemental coverage..This week, one new cosponsor Rep. David Valadao signed on to Rep. John Duncan's CPI for Seniors Act. The cosponsor total is now at six. If signed into law, H.R. 2154 would create a new consumer price index specifically for senior citizens for the purpose of establishing a more accurate Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. Currently, COLAs are based upon the way young, urban workers spend their money, using the CPI-W. However, seniors spend a disproportionate share of their income on healthcare, and the CPI-W fails to capture that. Each year, it underestimates the spending inflation that seniors experience. TSCL enthusiastically supports the CPI for Seniors Act, and we were pleased to see one new cosponsor sign on this week.
