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While a compromise was not reached, some consider the automatic budget cuts as a silver lining. "The good news, if there is no agreement, the nation is going to end up with what Republicans said, there will be a dollar spending reduction for every dollar increase in the debt ceiling" said Hensarling. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney echoed the same optimism: "It's important to remember, however, that because of the Budget Control Act, the 1.2 trillion dollars that the Super Committee was supposed to achieve in deficit reduction will happen regardless.".Although Medicare has an annual Open Enrollment period, when beneficiaries can compare drug plans and switch to lower costing drug plans, few retirees actually do so. "In most areas of the country, the Medicare beneficiaries have more than two dozen Part D plans to sort through, and the average person just don't know where to begin, or that free, unbiased help is available," Johnson says. "Consequently, Medicare beneficiaries winds up overpaying for prescriptions that could be obtained for a lower cost from a different drug plan.".Legislation is currently under consideration in the House, The Social Security 2100 Act, that would adjust the income thresholds that subject Social Security benefits to taxation, from ,000 to ,000 for single filers and from ,000 to 0,000 for joint filers. According to a survey by The Senior Citizens League, 55 percent of survey participants support lifting the threshold for taxation of Social Security benefits to those levels, and only 12 percent oppose. The bill would pay for this as well as providing a boost in Social Security benefits and a more generous cost-of-living adjustment, by increasing the amount of wages subject to payroll taxes and by very gradually increasing the tax rate that workers and employers pay..Out-of-network emergency services, which would include services furnished after a patient is stabilized unless notice and consent criteria are met..Even if you stay in the hospital overnight, Medicare still considers observation services as outpatient care and requires you to pay a bigger share of the costs. Your inpatient status is also important to determining whether Medicare will cover care you receive if you are later released to a skilled nursing the facility..Rather than making deliberate well-reasoned choices, our brains often latch onto the first piece of information offered when making a decision, even though we may not be aware we are doing so - a process cognitive scientists have named "anchoring." You already know how it works. We've all seen a sign like this: "SAVE! 4 cans of soup for $Limit 12 cans per customer!" How many cans would you buy?.At their convention in July, delegates of the Republican Party approved a platform focused on reducing the national debt. Their document begins by stating: "We reject the old maxim that Social Security is the 'Third Rail' of American politics, deadly for anyone who would change it. The Democratic Party still treats it that way, even though everyone knows that its current course will lead to a financial and social disaster." The focal point of their plan is cutting government waste, encouraging economic growth, and balancing the budget even if that means making significant changes to programs like Social Security..Because of your concerns in this regard, you will be pleased to learn of H.R. 1030, the Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers Act of 201This legislation would direct the Department of Labor to prepare and publish a monthly CPI for Elderly Consumers that indicates changes over time in expenditures for consumption that is typical for individuals 62 years or older. The bill would then amend current law to provide for the use of such new CPI in the computation of COLA increases for Social Security and Medicare benefits..This week, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees released their annual reports on the financial health of the programs. In addition, Senator David Vitter's Notch Fairness Act and Representative Buck McKeon's Social Security Fairness Act each gained one new cosponsor.