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On Tuesday, with a vote of 244-154, lawmakers in the Housed approved legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act's controversial Medicare cost-cutting board..Congressman John Garamendi, the sponsor of the bipartisan CPI-E Act, recently said: "Using a Consumer Price Index that actually reflects how retirees spend their money especially in health care is a no-brainer that will increase benefits and make Social Security work better for the people it serves.".For information about town hall meetings near you during the spring recess, call the local offices of your elected officials. You can find contact information for your Members of Congress right here..Finally, the Protecting and Preserving Social Security Act gained one new cosponsor in Senator Claire McCaskill, who brings the new cosponsor total to three. If signed into law, S. 1600 would base the Social Security COLA on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly. The bill would also ensure that high income earners pay their fair share of taxes into Social Security..Senator Mitt Romney recently led a bipartisan Senate group in introducing legislation aimed at fixing Social Security and Medicare's funding shortfalls. If nothing changes, the programs' trust funds are expected to become insolvent in 15 years. If that should occur, benefits would be reduced by about 22 percent in order to match the amount of payroll taxes coming in..Vaccine scientists are similarly cautious, especially of a testing schedule that will compress both the size and duration of safety and effectiveness trials - and even overlap them - in a bid to save time..It's important for people planning retirement to learn the age in which you would "break even" for taking benefits earlier than age 70 - which is helpful in determining your optimal age to retire - and how much more you would get if you worked a few more years..Again, those projections were made prior to the effects of the pandemic. You can be sure when this is all over, the projections will be much worse..They are willing to pay more for Social Security, if necessary, to keep the program strong.