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Members of the House and Senate spent the week in their home states and districts, and will return to Capitol Hill on Monday, February 27th..If you receive a call claiming to be your utility company and feel pressured for immediate payment or personal information, hang up the phone and call the customer service number on your utility bill.."Low COLAs also take a huge toll on overall growth of Social Security income over a retirement," Cates says. "COLAs are like interest, and when COLAs are so low, benefits remain flat. Because benefits are lower now, the amount of increase, if more normal patterns of inflation resume later, will be based on lower benefit amounts, reining in future growth that retirees may have factored into their retirement plans," Cates explains..Yes: 13%.The receipt for the original purchase with the questioned charge, or if you used a credit card, a copy of the credit card statement..The amount of the bill that your dad received, however, is not necessarily unexpected. Medicare Advantage plans charge daily co-payments for hospital stays. A one week stay in the hospital, with respiratory support, could easily cost in excess of ,944..Medicare Part D's True Out-of-Pocket-Cost spending requirements which are unusually high as it is, are poised to make a stunning and unprecedented jump in 2020. Unless Congress takes action, the Part D doughnut hole coverage gap will swell by 25% next year, from ,100 in 2019, to ,350 in 2020 before the catastrophic phase of coverage kicks in. This would be the largest increase in Part D's required out–of–pocket spending ever, since the start of the program in 2006.."The Social Security Notch: An Economic Analysis," John Haldi, The Senior Citizens League, October 2002..With the cash deficits of the disability trust fund growing and with the trust fund's projected insolvency in 2018, something will need to be done about the disability program, and soon.

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Keep retirement accounts invested in age appropriate choices..To learn how much the COLA cuts would cost you, try TSCL's "chained" COLA calculator..The problem of how our government calculates price inflation affects more than just Social Security benefits. The consumer price index is also used to adjust many federal programs and other aspects of our laws such as the federal poverty limits and the federal tax code. By growing more slowly, fewer people qualify for safety net programs, or the federal tax code exemptions become less generous over time, and taxpayers pay more in taxes. … Continued

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In the coming weeks, budget discussions will continue on Capitol Hill as committees in the House and Senate form proposals of their own. TSCL is hopeful that leaders in both chambers will consider measures that would improve the pharmaceutical industry and ensure access to more affordable prescription drugs for Part D enrollees. We will monitor the budget debate closely in the weeks ahead, and we will post updates here in the Legislative News section of our website..As anyone who was following the news last week knows, Congress failed to reach an agreement on a new coronavirus economic relief bill, so they went home. They have left it up to the leadership in both houses to try and come up with legislation that can pass both bodies, but no one sounds optimistic that will happen before they return in September..The White House budget released earlier this year proposes to establish an out-of-pocket limit to the Part D benefit by phasing down beneficiary co-insurance in the catastrophic coverage phase of the benefit from 5 percent to no-cost sharing over four years, beginning in 201While this is better than nothing, the proposals make other changes shifting significant costs to Part D plans which would likely be passed on to consumers in higher premium costs and higher drug costs for the sickest people who hit the pre-catastrophic Part D gap. One analyst has estimated those costs would average ,000. In addition, there is no proposal at all that would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. … Continued