Last year TSCL joined the fight to end "surprise billing," a practice that generally refers to expensive, unexpected medical bills that patients receive from hospitals and doctors' offices even when they have health insurance that they expect will cover the majority of the costs of treatment..With my first bill, the Save Social Security Act, we are keeping our promise to our seniors and strengthening Social Security. This legislation eliminates the Social Security tax break for people making over 0,000 a year, while maintaining it for income earned from the current cap of 7,200 up to 0,000. This is a fairer way to extend the life of the program. In fact, the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration found that my legislation would extend the program's solvency for another 30 years, keeping it on firm financial footing through 206At that point, it would also close 2/3 of the remaining gap, allowing Social Security to still pay 90 percent of benefits..On Thursday, more than ninety new lawmakers were sworn into office and members of the 113th Congress assembled for the first time. The House of Representatives gained eighty-two new lawmakers forty-seven Democrats and thirty-five Republicans and the Senate gained twelve newly elected lawmakers eight Democrats, three Republicans, and one Independent..It's helpful to think of age 70 as the retirement age to get the maximum benefit that you are entitled to. Not only does your benefit grow 8% per year, but the additional years of work could potentially boost the amount of your initial retirement benefit. By continuing to work you also give yourself more time to contribute to retirement accounts and pay off home mortgages, and you reduce the length of time or amount you will need to withdraw from your retirement accounts. That can make a big difference on how well you can live and thrive in retirement..At the celebratory event, the President told his audience, "This got done because of you; because you called, you emailed, you tweeted your representatives and you demanded action. You made it clear that you wanted to see some common sense in Washington.".This week, one new cosponsor Rep. David Valadao signed on to Rep. John Duncan's CPI for Seniors Act. The cosponsor total is now at six. If signed into law, H.R. 2154 would create a new consumer price index specifically for senior citizens for the purpose of establishing a more accurate Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. Currently, COLAs are based upon the way young, urban workers spend their money, using the CPI-W. However, seniors spend a disproportionate share of their income on healthcare, and the CPI-W fails to capture that. Each year, it underestimates the spending inflation that seniors experience. TSCL enthusiastically supports the CPI for Seniors Act, and we were pleased to see one new cosponsor sign on this week..If adopted, S. 269 would strengthen and reform the Social Security program by providing beneficiaries with a 2 percent benefit boost, basing cost-of-living adjustments on the CPI-E, creating a new minimum benefit set at 125 percent of the poverty line, and cutting taxes for beneficiaries. It would also apply the payroll tax to income over 0,000 and gradually increase the payroll tax rate to 7.4 percent..pharmacy with a prescription for blood pressure medication. Visits to the.In addition to expenses such as out-of-pocket drug costs, and co-pays for visits to the doctor, here are a few of the most common overlooked medical deductions: