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This estimate is still just that - an estimate. The 2020 COLA is based on CPI data through September 2019 and won't be announced until October. Inflation could start going up again, but with the first five months of data so low, we are likely to see another low COLA in 2020..What you can do:.During the nation's recovery from the 2007- 2009 Great Recession, and Troubled Asset Relief Program bailouts, Social Security and Medicare became frequent targets of deficit cut negotiations. Deficit plans included proposals to reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments by tying it to the more slowly growing chained consumer price index. The Budget Control Act of 2011 led to automatic 2% annual Medicare cuts on payments to providers. "That cut affected all Medicare providers, including hospitals, doctors, nursing staff," Johnson observes. "These are very same providers that are now so dangerously strained by the coronavirus pandemic.".By Representative Matt Cartwright.In September of last year Sen. Joni Ernst talked about the need to go "behind closed doors" to reform Social Security, presumably because the American public won't stand for it being done in the open. There was more a year earlier from Majority Leader McConnell when he labeled Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - so-called entitlements - "the real drivers of the debt" and called for them to be adjusted "to the demographics of the future.".What do you think about proposals to cut Social Security or Medicare benefits? Visit to participate in TSCL's annual Senior Survey..The Obama Administration and proponents of Obamacare have continued to downplay the cancellations of the health insurance of 4.7 million individual policy-holders who received notices that our polices would be ending in 2014 because they didn't comply with the new healthcare law. I was able to temporarily renew my so-called "junk policy." I wanted to keep it because my deductible is 50% lower than the lowest deductible found on any comparable policy in my area on the exchange, and my current plan has a much less restrictive provider network. Most importantly my premium is about 60% lower than I would pay on the exchange, that's after the subsidy..In the debate over lowering prescription drug prices, I see frequent mention of allowing importation of drugs from other countries. How would that work for people enrolled in Medicare Part D?.The index used to determine the COLA of retirees does not measure the spending patterns of retirees, but younger workers instead. Retirees, we all know, spend their money differently than younger people and must spend a far bigger share of their budgets on housing and medical costs - two categories of spending that often rise several times faster than overall inflation.