It would: require Medicare to negotiate lower Part D drug prices, allow individuals to import prescription drugs from Canada, require greater price transparency from drug manufacturers, accelerate the closing of the Part D "doughnut hole," restore drug rebates for low-income seniors, and put a 0 monthly cap on prescription drug spending for individuals. Together, these changes would dramatically reduce drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries. In the coming months, TSCL will continue to work towards its passage in Congress..The data certainly suggests this is the case. The years in which inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index for Workers has been the highest, the difference in the chained CPI was the greatest. The average difference between the CPI-W and the chained CPI is 0.3 tenths of a percentage point. But in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina sent gas prices through the roof, the CPI-W paid a COLA of 4.1% the following year. The chained CPI would only have paid 3.4% - a difference of 0.7 tenths of a percentage point. In 2008 the CPI-W paid a COLA of 5.8% the following year. The chained CPI would have only paid 5.2%, a difference of 0.6 tenths of a percentage point..In March of this year, after nearly a year of debate in Congress, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. As the initial media coverage and analysis of the new law reached a fever pitch, there were many news reports on a certain provision of the law that relates to prescription drug coverage retirees receive through their former employers.."The world's biggest drug makers and their trade groups have cut checks to 356 lawmakers ahead of this year's election - more than two-thirds of the sitting members of Congress, according to a new STAT analysis..Last year the Senate was a bigger problem when dealing with passing legislation but there still may be hope this year for a bi-partisan bill authored by Senators Ron Wyden and Chuck Grassley. "The bill would cap seniors' drug costs and penalize drugmakers for raising prices too fast - a provision that many Republicans have likened to price controls. It would save the government a projected billion over a decade, far less than the 0 billion-plus under the House negotiation bill," according to Politico..If you didn't sign up with Medicare for Part A and/or Part B when you first turned 65, because you were covered by your own or your wife's company's plan, you may need to sign up during the 8-month period that began after your wife's employment ended in order to avoid a late enrollment penalty..For frequent updates on the status of the spending bill, visit our pages on Facebook or Twitter..Yes. Social Security provides a variety of benefits to people who have not paid into the system. If one meets certain eligibility criteria, one can be eligible for benefits based on another person's account. Here are some examples:.After passing new tax legislation that's projected to increase the federal deficit by more than .5 trillion over the next ten years, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell recently blamed Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for the rapidly increasing deficit. McConnell said the only way to lower the deficit would be to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
