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For details, or to see if your Members of Congress will be holding town hall meetings during the summer recess, call their local offices. You can find contact information HERE..TSCL sent a letter to House and Senate leaders asking for their support for a more fair and adequate Social Security COLA. Stated TSCL's Chairman Arthur Cooper, "Eighty-six percent of TSCL's members and supporters believe Congress must pass legislation tying the annual COLA to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly. Doing so would more accurately base COLAs on the spending patterns of seniors instead of the spending patterns of young, urban workers, and would go a long way in improving the adequacy of Social Security benefits.".Mulvaney explained that the goal of the proposed cut to SSDI is to "test new approaches to increase labor force participation," which suggests that large numbers of ineligible people are abusing the system and need to go back to work. While Social Security disability has well-publicized problems with fraud and abuse, it's important to note that eligibility standards for Social Security disability mean that a person must have a condition so severe that he or she is not able to work. Thus, someone who truly meets the eligibility standards for disability, is not likely to ever re-enter the workforce..This approach is unacceptable to me and reflects the wrong values and priorities. I'll never forget the elderly woman from Galesburg, Illinois who came up to me on the campaign trail last year to tell me how important Medicare is to her well-being. She pleaded with me to fight to protect Medicare because she couldn't afford even an extra in out-of-pocket costs for her healthcare, let alone the additional ,400 the Ryan Budget could put her back..If signed into law, the Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers Act would amend the Social Security Act with regard to the annual cost-of-living-adjustment Social Security beneficiaries receive. Currently, the COLA is based upon the spending patterns of young, urban workers as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics the CPI for Urban Wage Earners. This legislation would calculate the COLA based on the spending patterns of seniors, or by using the BLS tracked CPI-E..Petition to Congress in Support of a Social Security Guarantee.Note the date and time of day of the call. Also note if you have a clear line or if the call sounds like it's coming from overseas. Does the person you are talking to have trouble with the language, have a heavy accent, etc.?.Hospitals are not required to tell patients whether they are inpatients or outpatients, so frequently beneficiaries never learn of their status until after they have been released. If you believe the services your mother received should have been billed as inpatient services check your mother's Medicare Summary Notice and follow the instructions to challenge the charges from the hospital listed under Part B of the notice. You may also challenge any charges from the nursing home for outpatient services..In making the 1977 changes, Congress, wanting to avoid an abrupt change, allowed persons born from 1917 through 1921 to use a special transitional benefit formula or the new 1977 formula, whichever would yield the higher of the two benefits. The transition benefit formula never delivered the promised benefit protection, however, because it did not yield a higher benefit amount. Instead, the new benefit formula most often yielded the higher amount.