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The Democratic Platform.Following the blueprint's release, Sen. Bernard Sanders ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee voiced his concerns, saying: "This budget gives huge tax breaks to billionaires and millionaires while making devastating cuts to education, Medicare, affordable housing, prescription drug coverage, and many other vital investments for the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor … This budget is the Robin Hood principle in reverse. It takes from the poor to give to the rich.".By US Representative Dennis A. Ross.How Social Security Can Be Fixed Without Deep Cuts.This is an issue TSCL will continue to monitor as the year progresses to make sure the legislation is implemented as Congress intended..The more you learn about the COLA, however, the more the anemic annual boosts of our past decade raise questions. The very first COLA ever paid was 77%. No, you read that right, this is not a typo. It became payable in 1950, one year before I was born, and a full ten years after Ida May Fuller received the nation's very first Social Security benefit check for .54 - the equivalent of 0.90 today..Medicare Advantage plan cuts. So far, seniors have not been widely affected by cuts to Medicare Advantage plans, but many of the changes in reimbursements to plans have not yet taken effect. TSCL remains concerned that the reimbursement cuts would cause plans to drop extra benefits like eyeglasses and hearing aids that they now provide. Of greater concern is whether plan payments will be adequate for insurers to maintain their contracts with Medicare to provide services. When Congress cut plan payments too deeply in the past, insurers pulled out of markets all over the United States, leaving millions of seniors scrambling to find another health plan - most often at higher out-of-pocket cost..senior who hadn't seen a doctor in years, despite being a smoker. It took some.According to the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2020, 99% of Medicare Advantage and drug plans require prior authorization for at least some health services and prescription drugs. Traditional Medicare, on the other hand, does not require prior authorization for the majority of services, but may do so for some Part B drugs administered in doctors' offices, such as chemotherapy treatments. Medicare Advantage and prescription drug plans typically use prior authorization for higher cost services, such as inpatient hospital care, high tech diagnostic scans and tests, and more expensive prescription drugs.