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Medicare Advantage plans merit a serious look, but you need to understand the pros and cons to determine the best fit for your budget without sacrificing insurance protection. The costly trade - offs to lower Medicare Advantage premiums often don't start showing up until you get sicker or need hospitalization. Some key considerations:.There were reports recently that Republicans in the House of Representatives are insisting that stemming the growth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs is necessary. Bloomberg news reported on a House Budget Committee hearing about a new Congressional Budget Office report that projects trillion-dollar deficits for the next decade..The coronavirus caused approximately 375,000 deaths and was the third leading cause of death in 2020, after heart disease and cancer. Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. now top 550,000 since the start of the pandemic..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..Social Security recipients will get 2% cost-of-living adjustment effective January 201But despite it being the largest increase in five years, the news is being met with frustration from millions of retiree households who won't see any of the raise, primarily due to rising Medicare Part B costs..Osterholm added that "vaccines will not become available in any meaningful way until early to third quarter of next year.".Dining On A Social Security Budget.The study examined the increase in costs of 32 key items between 2000 and January 201The items were chosen because they are typical of the costs seniors must bear. Of the 32 costs analyzed, 20 exceeded the COLA. The selected items represent eight categories, weighted by approximate expenditure..Next week on January 24th the Senate Finance Committee will be holding a formal confirmation hearing to question Congressman Price. TSCL will be monitoring discussions about the ACA and the future of the Medicare program, and we will post a summary of the hearing here in the Legislation News section of our website.