Health Reform Issue Brief Impact Of Key Provisions Of The House Covid 19 Relief Proposal On Marketplace PremiumsDining On A Social Security Budget.Early last year, prior to even knowing the impact of the pandemic, the Social Security Trustees forecast that the financing of the Social Security Trust Funds would turn negative this year. The Social Security Trustees forecast that the Social Security retirement and survivors trust fund would receive a total of 5.6 billion in 2021 but estimated that program costs would be more than ,019.2 billion..Ending the payroll tax, "would end Social Security as we now know it - as an 'earned' benefit that people pay for with taxes based on their wages," Johnson says. "If Social Security were funded out of general revenues instead, the program would be more like welfare - subject to the annual appropriations process, and the funding or repeal whims of Congress," she says. … Continued
Yuri GelfandSo far both Congress and President Obama have been cool to the idea of restoring funding to Meals on Wheels. That could change if Members of Congress start hearing from their senior constituents. Do you know someone who is losing their Meals on Wheels due to budget cuts? Write a letter to the editor of your local paper!.In a letter to Marilyn Tavenner, the Acting Administrator of CMS, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission warned that some of the health plans don't have the experience to manage the full range of benefits required by dual eligibles or the capacity to serve large numbers that would be automatically transferred into the plans en masse at the beginning of the program..A widely-discussed plan to reduce the federal deficit would use a slower-growing consumer price index, known as the "chained" CPI, to calculate the annual cost-of-living adjustment. The proposal, often referred to as "chaining" the COLA, would not be the first time the government has tweaked the inflation index to cut government spending on benefit programs … Continued