Third, extending the payroll tax cut could make a permanent cut more likely. As of 2009, there were seventy–three "temporary" measures in the books - many of them are now considered as good as permanent. Scott Hodge, the President of the Tax Foundation, recently warned lawmakers about the nature of temporary tax cuts. He stated, "This is going to become a permanent law. Once these things get … cooked in to the system, they're awfully difficult to get rid of.".If you miss this 8-month Special Enrollment period, you can sign up January 1 March 31, during the Medicare General Enrollment period. Your coverage, however, won't begin until July In addition, you may have to pay a higher premium for late enrollment..The study examined the increase in costs of 39 key items between 2000 and January 201The items were chosen because they are typical of the costs of most Social Security recipients, and include expenditures like the Medicare Part B premium, that are not measured by the index currently used to calculate the COLA. Of the 39 items analyzed, 25 exceeded the percentage of increase in the COLA over the same period. "This study illustrates why legislation is needed to provide a more fair and adequate COLA," Johnson says. "To put it in perspective, the same 0 worth of groceries that a retiree household could buy in 2000, can only buy worth today," Johnson adds..A recent report by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services has also found that high price drugs are affecting federal spending on drugs and increasing federal payments for Medicare Part D catastrophic coverage. Once people hit the catastrophic level of Part D coverage, beneficiaries pay a 5% coinsurance for drugs while the Federal Government pays the vast majority of the remaining costs. But there is no limit. The Inspector General's report said that federal payments for catastrophic coverage in 2015 exceeded .2 billion in 2015, which is more than triple the amount paid in 20Incredibly, only ten high-priced drugs accounted for nearly one-third of all drug spending in catastrophic coverage in 2015..Preliminary Analysis of the Rivlin-Ryan Health Care Proposal, Congressional Budget Office, November 17, 2010..As anyone who was following the news last week knows, Congress failed to reach an agreement on a new coronavirus economic relief bill, so they went home. They have left it up to the leadership in both houses to try and come up with legislation that can pass both bodies, but no one sounds optimistic that will happen before they return in September..TSCL enthusiastically supports the No Social Security for Illegal Immigrants Act, and in a survey that we conducted in January of 2016, nearly 90 percent of our members and supporters agreed that such payments should be prohibited. We commend Rep. Rohrabacher for introducing legislation that would protect the integrity of the Social Security program while preventing an unnecessary and unspecified strain on the Trust Fund. We look forward to working with him in the coming months to help build support for his critical new bill..By Jamie McMillen, TSCL Legislative Assistant.While neither platform outlines a comprehensive path forward for Social Security, they do offer two dramatically different stances on the program's future. The Democrats adopted a platform that prioritizes an expansion of Social Security, while the Republicans committed to reforming the program in a way that improves the program's financial outlook without using revenue increases to do so.
