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an average of ,600 a month..There is real concern that many people who are treated for the coronavirus could end up with surprise medical bills. Because of that Democrats want to make health-care services free to people who contract the new coronavirus. If treatment were free, those with the virus wouldn't have to fear surprise medical bills. That would, of course, still leave unsolved the issue of surprise billing for other types of treatments..Key Bill Gains Critical Support.An ongoing study of the buying power of Social Security benefits, a special project of TSCL, has found that, since 2000, COLAs increased Social Security benefits by a total of 46%, but the typical expenses of older households grew more than twice as fast - 96.3%. For every 0 a retired household spent in 2000, the same household can only buy about worth of goods and services today..Medicare's extraordinarily high reimbursement rates for durable medical equipment like back braces and power wheel chairs have made it a particularly lucrative target for crooks and abuse billing practices. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently reported that an astonishing 66% of all durable medical equipment claims were improperly paid in the government's fiscal year 2012, costing Medicare more than billion..Earlier this fall, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected that home-heating fuels would cost about 20 percent more during the upcoming heating season, but the most recent Consumer Price Index data from October 2017 through October 2018, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicates that heating-fuel costs appear to be climbing even faster and are now 26.2 percent higher than October 2017..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..The Velcro effect of anchoring can influence far more consequential decisions, in ways we may not even realize. Consider the process of determining the "right" retirement age:.Upon introducing the bill back in 2015, Congressman John Larson said: "Social Security remains the nation's bedrock retirement program and provides vital protection … Many Americans, however, do not believe it will be there for them when they retire. I am proud to announce a common sense path forward today that not only strengthens benefits now, but ensures Social Security will be here through the next century."