There are 1,313,935 active members/supporters..Keep up with the latest. Follow TSCL on Twitter and Facebook..This Congress, I introduced the Fair COLA for Seniors Act, to ensure that your Social Security payment keeps pace with your cost of living. This bill would change the current ineffective price index used to calculate Social Security's cost-of-living adjustment to one tailored around the lives and needs of seniors. This index, the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, accurately reflects how seniors spend their money, with a focus on healthcare and housing. It is a common-sense proposal that will allow for benefits to keep up with costs..Remember "Flo"? In 1999 she was the blond, perky, mature lady who came onto our TV screens telling us that she was here "to tell seniors about changes that affect our medicines." She would end by saying "I don't want big government in my medicine cabinet." Flo implied that, if Medicare provided a drug benefit for seniors, it would stifle research and development of new life-saving drugs coming to market and restrict access to drugs a patient was already taking..On Wednesday, with a vote of 21-3, the Senate Finance Committee voted in favor of advancing the nomination of Sylvia Mathews Burwell as the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed as Secretary, Burwell will oversee the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs, and she will also manage the continued implementation of the Affordable Care Act..The budget blueprint now moves to the Senate, where leaders are expected to take it up as early as Monday. It will likely pass along party lines in that chamber too, with no anticipated support from Senate Democrats..The system, however, isn't estimated to be able to pay scheduled benefits in full for that long. The Social Security Trustees estimate that the Trust Funds will become fully insolvent by the end of 203When Trustees use the term insolvent that means the point at which all the extra revenues that were borrowed, now totaling more than .6 trillion, have run out, and there are no more IOUs held by the Trust Fund. Some people believe that, when the Trust Funds are exhausted, Social Security will be completely unable to pay benefits. But that's not the case..After reporting her suspicions to Medicare and her mother's Part D insurer, and not getting much of a response, Heap contacted the Los Angeles County sheriff's task force specializing in prescription drug fraud. There she learned the drugs listed on her mother's explanation of benefits forms are among the most desired type in Medicare drug fraud schemes..On Monday, President Obama's November immigration orders which TSCL's members and supporters overwhelmingly oppose according to recent poll results were temporarily halted by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas. Judge Hanen did not rule on the legality of the President's orders on Tuesday the lawsuit is expected to take many months to complete. Instead, he issued a 123-page temporary injunction on the grounds that President Obama's orders did not go through the proper procedures, which require public notices and comment periods. Judge Hanen wrote: "This is not the end of the inquiry; in fact, in this case, it is really the tip of the iceberg."
