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Efforts are quietly underway to lay the groundwork for a far-reaching fiscal deal that involves Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and Medicare benefits. White House officials and Senate Republicans have met in a series of private sessions in recent months. In his fiscal year 2014 budget, President Obama proposed reducing the growth in COLAs as well as raising Medicare premiums, reducing benefits of higher income seniors and increasing the Medicare eligibility age. Everything is still on the table, the pressure point being the debt limit. The government is expected to hit the debt limit ceiling the statutory borrowing limit - sometime this fall..Separately, the House Ways and Means Committee Means Committee approved the largest expansion of Medicare since the addition of drug benefits two decades ago..Even before the coronavirus pandemic Congress was facing tough decisions on how to strengthen the Medicare's Part A Hospital Insurance trust fund. But Congress is now running out of time and will need to move soon on a plan to prolong program solvency..The difference in drug prices between the lowest and highest costing plans, can be in the hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. For brand name and specialty drugs, the most frequent reason that the drug costs so much more in the highest costing plan is lack of coverage. The drug is not listed on the high cost plan's formulary. For example, the lowest cost plan for Sovaldi, a drug used to treat Hepatitis C, charges ,600 in co-insurance. The highest cost drug plan charges 0,800, the full cost of the drug, because Sovaldi is not on the plan's formulary..The Social Security COLA was intended to protect the buying power of older Americans who for the most part, are no longer in the workforce. The majority of retirees depend on Social Security for at least half of their income, meaning that Social Security benefits tend to be spent immediately on essentials like housing, food and healthcare returning billions of dollars to the U.S. economy every year..So far critics of the program have not convinced CMS to pare down the size of the demonstrations and states winning approval will get the green light to start shifting patients into managed care plans starting next year..Comparison shop &nash; You can often save by getting prescription medicines, flea and tick products, and heartworm preventatives through pet catalogs and internet discounters..Finally, the Social Security 2100 Act gained six new cosponsors this week, bringing the cosponsor total up to 170. The new cosponsors are Representative David Price, Representative Adam Schiff, Representative Rick Larsen, Representative Carolyn Maloney, Representative Darren Soto, and Representative Anthony Brown. If enacted, H.R. 1902 would strengthen and expand the Social Security program responsibly, without cutting benefits..Senator Amy Klobuchar introduced S. 62 on January 9, 201It has since been referred to the Committee on Finance.