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Because this is an election year, elected lawmakers are likely to be listening extremely carefully to their constituents. Your help now, and that of family and friends, could make the difference in pushing through the ,000 lump-sum legislation..A question to ask yourself is how long you plan to stay in the home, and how many years remain on your current mortgage. If your current mortgage only has 10 or 15 years left to go, refinancing is likely to result in higher lifetime interest costs. When you get a new loan, most of the charges in the early years go towards interest costs. But if you only have a few years left on your current loan, you have moved past that stage and are making progress toward paying off your loan balance. If you refinance now, you start over from scratch..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..Medicare Advantage plans combine both parts of Medicare, and the health plans are required to cover everything that is covered under original Medicare. However, your provider may be reporting your doctor's orders to your Medicare Advantage plan in order to get prior authorization for your CT scan. Most Medicare Advantage plans routinely require prior authorization to manage your care and to prevent excess use of care that has not been documented as medically necessary. This practice protects you from surprise bills, and confirms that the provider is authorized to bill your Medicare Advantage plans for your care..The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction was created under the Budget Control Act of 2011, and is charged with finding at least .2 trillion in deficit cuts by Thanksgiving. It will likely consider proposals to reform Social Security and Medicare..This week, one new cosponsor Rep. Glenn Thompson signed on to the Preventing and Reducing Improper Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures Act, bringing the total up to forty-nine. If signed into law, the PRIME Act would take a number of steps to comprehensively prevent fraud, waste, and abuse within the two programs a problem that TSCL believes must be addressed in order to ensure that scarce program dollars are being spent properly..Recently my mother got a notice from Social Security saying that her income is over the limit, and now she's paying much higher Medicare premiums than last year. Normally her income is modest, but in 2009 we sold her home after she moved into an assisted living facility. Her monthly Part B premium rose from .40 to 1.50. Her Part D coverage had increased by per month and the government tacked on a surcharge of more than doubling the premium that she paid last year. Altogether, my mother's Social Security was reduced by .10 a month! Someone told me this was part of healthcare reform. Why was there no advance notice to allow families to plan for this?.One witness, Scott Serota, President and CEO of the BlueCross BlueShield Association, suggested a gradual shift from the current fee-for-service system toward a series of new payment models that would allow for geographic variability. Another witness, David Bronson, President of the American College of Physicians, suggested a patient-centered medical home model, where each patient would choose a physician with a specific team of caregivers. He explained that his model would result in better coordinated care for seniors..Medicare spending in 2013 accounts for 16% of the federal budget. That spending is projected to almost double as a share of the nation's economy in coming years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The House, Senate, and the President's budget plans contain a number of provisions that would cut federal spending on Medicare. But how do senior voters view the proposals?