Conservatives and budget hawks have long sought to roll back large government programs like Medicare and Medicaid to rein in the debt..Social Security and Medicare remain the targets of plans to reduce federal spending. Over the past 12 months, both Members of Congress and President Obama came close to agreeing on cuts to Social Security benefits, including cost-of-living adjustments and making seniors pay more for their Medicare. How much are Social Security benefits worth over a lifetime and what can you count on? A baby boomer retiring with an "average" benefit of ,100 in 2011 can expect to receive 0,225 over ten years, and 3,641 if he or she lives twenty-five years, due to the compounding effect of the cost-of-living adjustments..Social Security Subcommittee Discusses DI Program.Here are six steps to take now that can help you slow hitting the doughnut hole.In short, the Social Security disability trust fund would become insolvent by mid-2021 and the retirement trust fund would become permanently depleted by 2023, just two short years from now..I can't find the remote..American consumers have waited too long for Congress to finally make bipartisan progress on lowering prescription drug costs. At a time of rampant hyper-partisanship on Capitol Hill, I've seen glimmers of hope for how lawmakers from across the political spectrum can unite on this issue. We can't stop pushing for lower prices, because our nation's seniors deserve that level of respect, commitment, and urgency..In fact, unlike the additional Medicare tax on high earners, this 3.8% net investment tax was not even a specific provision of the Affordable Care Act. It was a provision of a separate bill, the Health Care Education and Reconciliation Act of 2010 which was passed about two days after the Affordable Care Act. By setting up the revenues so that they would flow to the General Fund, Congress by-passed earmarking those revenues for Medicare Part A or Part B Trust Fund. That means when the funds are used for other government spending, the Medicare Trust Funds are not earning any interest from the federal government for the use of those funds..The income thresholds that subject up to 50 percent of Social Security benefits to tax start at provisional incomes of ,000 and ,000. A second tier taxes up to 85% of benefits when individual provisional income exceeds ,000, and joint exceeds ,000. If the thresholds were adjusted to today's dollars the ,000 threshold would be about ,107 and the ,000 would be about ,097 according an analysis for TSCL.
