News

TSCL is adamantly opposed to using COLA cuts to reduce the federal budget deficit. "With thousands of dollars in Social Security and Medicare benefits at stake, we urge everyone who cares about their Social Security and Medicare benefits to contact their lawmakers in Congress NOW," Benton says..Scientists in China, Kazakhstan, India, Russia, Germany, Sweden, and the United States have brought 10 potential COVID-19 vaccines to the point where they are being evaluated in humans in some form. Another 115 are considered by the World Health Organization to be in the "preclinical" stage of development. In some cases, these preclinical vaccine candidates are scarcely off the drawing board. In others, they are still being tweaked or tested in cells. Some are being tried in lab animals..In late December of last year, the federal government reluctantly turned over to TSCL the first public copy of the controversial Totalization Agreement with Mexico after TSCL was forced to file two federal lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to the documents. The agreement has not yet been signed by the President or sent to Congress for final review..Last year, more than one-fourth of participants in TSCL's Senior Survey reported that they had received a "surprise" medical bill in the past 12 months. While surprise medical bills can refer to any number of situations, including a sudden cost increase for prescriptions, recent legislation passed in December of 2020 addresses a certain type. Specifically, medical bills that a patient unexpectedly receives when treated by an out-of-network provider at an in-network facility..Republican lawmakers are voicing deep skepticism about passing another round of ,200 rebate checks as they contemplate the next and possibly final stage of coronavirus relief legislation..View Cosponsors.In the days ahead, many Senators will be holding town hall meetings in their home states. TSCL encourages its members and supporters to attend these events and to ask important questions about the BCRA, like the following two….During the debate over the debt limit, you undoubtedly heard the President try to scare you into believing Social Security checks would not come. Let me be blunt. The federal government takes in nearly seven times more than it needs every month to pay Social Security checks. The money was there. If checks didn't come, it would have been because the President had chosen not to pay them. You did not read that wrong. If you had not received your Social Security payment, it was because the President has directed the Secretary of the Treasury not to pay it..Ending the payroll tax, "would end Social Security as we now know it - as an 'earned' benefit that people pay for with taxes based on their wages," Johnson says. "If Social Security were funded out of general revenues instead, the program would be more like welfare - subject to the annual appropriations process, and the funding or repeal whims of Congress," she says.