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Rushed or pressured to sign papers. Is the salesman or dealer herding you into an office and telling you to sign now or lose your deal? That's a sure sign it's a deal worth missing.."Chaining" COLAs Still Under Consideration.While at TREA, Larry became familiar with The Senior Citizens League, which was first established in 1992 as a special project of TREA.."'The risks are known. The benefits are still in question,'" said Zaldy Tan, a neurologist and medical director of the Center for Alzheimer's and Memory Disorders at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. ".Currently the SSA uses all earnings to determine entitlement to benefits, including the earnings for jobs worked illegally. The majority of seniors responding to TSCL surveys on the topic believe that noncitizens should not be allowed to receive Social Security based on illegal work. TSCL agrees. Social Security benefits are determined on earnings and work history, regardless of whether taxes were paid or not. Because those earnings are held by Social Security in an Earnings Suspense file, non-citizens could at some point gain access to benefits based on illegal earnings. TSCL strongly supports legislation that would ban the payment of Social Security based on unauthorized work..House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that she is pushing to attach drug price cutting legislation to the major budget bill carrying most of President Biden's trillion economic agenda in the coming months..However, TSCL is opposed to two provisions that lawmakers included in the package to offset its 0 billion cost. One of those provisions will increase monthly premiums for beneficiaries with higher incomes, and the other will create a new 0 deductible for those enrolled in supplemental Medigap plans. Both of them will require seniors to pay more out-of-pocket for their healthcare..Will you pay taxes on your Social Security benefits this year? Take TSCL's annual Senior Survey, visit..Re-opening is expected to be slow and painstaking as providers and states try different approaches to keep patients and staff safe. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently released a bulletin about what patients should know about seeking healthcare during the pandemic, which can be found online at:.

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One of the biggest traps to determining Medicare premiums based on income is how the government defines "high income." Social Security's rules can snag even modest-income people. This can happen when a home is sold or when converting retirement accounts. One-time capital gains can put seniors over the Medicare income thresholds. The higher Medicare premiums reduce monthly Social Security benefits for an entire year. Should your mother's income in 2010 return to more modest levels she won't have to pay the means test premium surcharges and her Social Security benefit should return to more normal levels next year..TSCL believes a cap of ,000 to ,000 out-of-pocket, particularly for people who don't receive any "Extra Help" to cover drug costs and out-of-pocket spending, would provide much needed protection that would significantly reduce the current impoverishing level of mandated out-of-pocket spending..An excessively low COLA triggers an important provision of law that ensures an individual's net Social Security benefit will not decrease from one year to the next because of an increase in the Part B premium. That's valuable protection. But when the provision is triggered there's no law which specifies how the unpaid portion of Medicare Part B premium increases will be financed. … Continued

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"Why Home Health Care is Suddenly Harder To Come By For Medicare Patients," Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News, February 3, 2020..TSCL polls indicate that a wide majority of older Americans are opposed to this policy. TSCL strongly supports legislation that would ban the use of earnings under invalid and fraudulent Social Security numbers from being used to determine benefits..Alexandria, VMore than 90 percent of older Americans are likely to be making a secret Christmas wish for the New Year, says The Senior Citizens League. "That's to make ends meet," says TSCL Chairman, Ed Cates. A national survey conducted by TSCL earlier this year found that 98 percent of Social Security recipients participating reported the annual cost-of-living adjustment had increased their Social Security benefits by less than a month in 2014, but 92 percent said their monthly expenses had increased by more than "That disparity between COLAs and rising costs is the 'Grinch that's stealing Christmas' for millions of older Americans this year," Cates says. … Continued