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better coverage and reduced her drug cost to a co-pay. Once you determine.The recent battle in Congress over lifting the debt limit contained mostly good news and some not so good news, for disabled and retired Americans. The legislation rolled back an unprecedented 52% spike in Medicare Part B premiums due to affect about 15.6 million Medicare recipients, and it prevented a 19% cut in Social Security Disability Insurance benefits due to occur later this year. But the legislation contained no Cost-of-Living Adjustment relief for 2016, and closed off one of the few claiming strategies that some Americans have to boost their Social Security payouts..Increase the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment to reflect the inflation experienced by retirees..Many of you will no doubt remember that we used to celebrate both Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays separately. In 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill, which moved several federal holidays to Mondays..The difference in drug prices between the lowest and highest costing plans, can be in the hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. For brand name and specialty drugs, the most frequent reason that the drug costs so much more in the highest costing plan is lack of coverage. The drug is not listed on the high cost plan's formulary. For example, the lowest cost plan for Sovaldi, a drug used to treat Hepatitis C, charges ,600 in co-insurance. The highest cost drug plan charges 0,800, the full cost of the drug, because Sovaldi is not on the plan's formulary..This week, the Beneficiary Enrollment Notification and Eligibility Simplification Act gained three new cosponsors in Representatives Anna Eshoo, Zoe Lofgren, and Earl Blumenauer, bringing the total up to thirteen. If signed into law, H.R. 2575 would simplify the Medicare enrollment process and increase efforts to educate those nearing eligibility about the program and the application process..TSCL's Take.TSCL survey participants are strongly supportive of legislative proposals that would modestly boost Social Security benefits, with 78 percent supporting the proposal. In addition the survey found that 86 percent support boosting the COLA by tying the annual COLA to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, which would tend to provide a modestly higher COLA in most years..My husband and I are both 65 and won't turn 66 until later in 201I'm entitled to a monthly benefit of 0 at 66, and my husband a benefit of about ,300. He originally planned to "file and then suspend" his benefit at 66 and continue working until age 70 while his benefit grew. Meanwhile at 66, I was hoping to take a spouse benefit based on his earnings of ,150. That would also provide me with a higher survivors benefit of almost ,100 per month by 2021 should anything happen to him. Because of the recent changes is this strategy no longer available to us?