Mary Johnson, Editor About one in five Medicare beneficiaries (21%) who participated in TSCL’s Senior Priority Plan Survey conducted from May - July, report that they filed an application for Medicare Extra Help over ...
How Will Prescription Drug Provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act Affect Your Drug Costs in 2023?
Medicare will start negotiating drug prices starting in 2023, as implementation of drug provisions in the newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) gets underway, but savings will come gradually over several years. ...
Social Security COLA In 2023 Will Be 8.7%
Social Security beneficiaries will receive an 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in January — one of the highest in the history of the program. The COLA, which is intended to protect the buying power of Social Securi ...
Limited Expansion of Medicare Coverage of Dental Care Could be Coming
TSCL has been pushing Congress to include Medicare coverage of dental care because so many seniors do not have dental insurance and good dental care is crucial for overall good health. Now, according to Kaiser Health ...
Record Spending by Big Drug Companies to Fight Drug Price Reduction
The pharmaceutical industry has spent more than $100 million on lobbying so far in 2022. According to OpenSecrets, the pharmaceutical industry has spent $101 million lobbying on behalf of 483 clients in 2022, fighting De ...
Study finds No link between Drug Costs and Research and Development Costs
Over the last several years drug companies and their trade groups have opposed many of the reforms proposed in Congress and supported by TSCL to lower drug prices by arguing that high drug prices are needed to recover re ...
Drug Prices Went Up Again
Although President Biden’s new drug price reduction law was passed this year, the law will not take effect immediately. The need for the new law, however, was underscored by the release of a study showing that drug pr ...
Remember Your Vaccinations
We remind you that it is time to get both your Covid booster shot as well as your seasonal flu vaccination. Medical experts are concerned that this flu season will be harder than usual. They are also concerned there will ...
Medicare Open Enrollment Season
We are now in Medicare open enrollment season. The 2023 season began last Saturday and runs through Dec. 7. During the annual open enrollment period, beneficiaries can review and change their Medicare coverage options, r ...
The Social Security Administration has announced that the COLA will increase Social Security benefits by 8.7% starting in 2023.
A COLA this high is almost unprecedented. This may be the first and the last time that today’s beneficiaries receive a COLA this high. There were only three other times since the start of automatic inflation adjustments ...