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It would: require Medicare to negotiate lower Part D drug prices, allow individuals to import prescription drugs from Canada, require greater price transparency from drug manufacturers, accelerate the closing of the Part D "doughnut hole," restore drug rebates for low-income seniors, and put a 0 monthly cap on prescription drug spending for individuals. Together, these changes would dramatically reduce drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries. In the coming months, TSCL will continue to work towards its passage in Congress..Separately, the House Ways and Means Committee Means Committee approved the largest expansion of Medicare since the addition of drug benefits two decades ago..[1] Combined Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Trust Funds February 2014 Baseline, Congressional Budget Office..In a separate report, the CDC responded to concerns about deaths being misattributed to Coved-1The agency took a close look at death certificates, finding that most that listed Covid-19 also named other contributing problems. They included conditions such as diabetes, known to increase the danger of severe disease, or conditions such as pneumonia that occurred in the chain of events leading to the deaths..New retirees can be caught off guard by the tax, and the Social Security Administration's information about it "can be easily misunderstood," Johnson notes. Information about the tax on the Social Security Administration's website says that the tax affects retirees with "substantial income." It states: "Some of you have to pay federal income taxes on your Social Security benefits. This usually happens only if you have other substantial income in addition to your benefits.."There appears to be a broad agreement on the types of healthcare policies that should be in the package, like closing the Medicaid coverage gap and adding dental and vision benefits to Medicare, but details are still being ironed out by committee staff and congressional offices and nothing is certain.".An ongoing study of the buying power of Social Security benefits, a special project of TSCL, has found that, since 2000, COLAs increased Social Security benefits by a total of 46%, but the typical expenses of older households grew more than twice as fast - 96.3%. For every 0 a retired household spent in 2000, the same household can only buy about worth of goods and services today..On Monday, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees reported on the financial standing of both programs. According to the six Trustees, Social Security and Medicare are worse off than they were just one year ago. Social Security's combined OASDI Trust Funds will reach exhaustion in 2033, three years earlier than last year's report projected. Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will face insolvency in 2024, the same date that was projected last year. However, the program's actual costs are expected to exceed estimates since the Trustees could not account for the costly "doc fix," which Congress will likely vote for at the end of this year..Drug and Health Plan Finders at : The only way to be sure you're getting unbiased information is to use the drug and health plan finders on the Medicare website, not from a dot com or even a dot org website, because most others receive income from ads, selling health plans or prescription drugs. Using the Drug and Health Plan Finders you can get an overview of the Part D and Medicare Advantage options in your area and estimated costs based on the prescriptions you take. Click on the Drug and Health Plan Finder link on the homepage and you will be taken to a page that will ask you a series of questions to get started. There's a Medicare Plan Finder online tutorial video to help show you what to do.