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For more information about town hall meetings near you during this week's holiday recess, call the local offices of your Members of Congress. For contact information, click HERE..You outline two troubling problems that we are hearing about with much greater frequency, especially over the past year:.[1] Income of the Aged Chartbook, 2012, April 2014..Pay special attention to the bathroom. Bathrooms are second to kitchen remodels for raising the selling price of your home. Modernizing the fixtures is a good idea, but don't rush to throw out that antique claw foot tub, check with your agent first. There are companies that can refinish those old tubs. Repair or replace leaky toilets and faucets. Repair or replace chipped tiles, replace caulking and grouting where necessary..This week, appropriators in the House and Senate continued making progress on a number of fiscal 2015 bills. Notably, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers released a plan to trim funding slightly for the contentious Labor-HHS-Education measure, which the Social Security and Medicare programs both fall under. The plan would provide 5.7 billion in funding for the measure, which is approximately billion below the current funding level..One thing we know for certain about the greatest generation, it is that they don't scare easily. Not economic depression, Nazi Germany, Japan, or world war could frighten my father's generation. It is with that same resolve and faith in the rightness of your cause that seniors should not give in to the fear-mongering coming out of Washington D.C..We are closely watching how the foreign drug index would be structured and evaluating how prices would be adjusted. We are highly concerned that a greater portion of the high cost of these drugs that are administered in doctors offices and clinics could wind up getting shifted to Medicare patients either in the form of higher co-pays and co-insurance, or higher premiums..But, unlike other parts of the tax code which are adjusted for inflation, such as income brackets, the income thresholds that subject a portion of Social Security benefits to taxation have never been adjusted. "Today, the Social Security benefits of even modest-income retirees - those who have modified gross incomes of more than ,000 or ,000 - are affected by the tax," Johnson says. Had the income thresholds been adjusted for inflation the ,000 threshold would be about ,137 today and the ,000 would be about ,815, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator..Annual cuts to healthcare providers. The Affordable Care Act provided for a number of cost-cutting mechanisms that cut government spending on hospitals and other healthcare providers. Medicare's Chief Actuary and the Congressional Budget Office have raised doubts that the savings targets can be achieved over a prolonged period of time, without providers dropping out of Medicare. Media reports already suggest that a growing number of Medicare beneficiaries are left with significant uncovered costs as hospitals keep patients listed as outpatients rather than inpatients due to new rules that penalize hospitals for frequent readmissions. TSCL is concerned that these sorts of problems may escalate as provisions of the Affordable Care Act are implemented.