"Social Security Has Nothing to Do with the Deficit" - Ronald Reagan

Attention Seniors, disabled and/or retired veterans, and all who will suffer if a Chained CPI formula is used to calculate cost of living increases,
I wrote and sent the letter below to the President and Vice President after thanking them for their work on gun control. We must continue to protest cuts to Social Security COLA via chain CPI. A chain CPI is not a modest cut when 28% of seniors and veterans social security benefits are spent for health care and prescriptions. The 2012 1.7% increase is bad enough. I also highlighted in my correspondence the need for Medicare to drop the erroneous classification "OUTPATIENT UNDER OBSERVATION" costing medicare patients thousands in rehabilitation nursing care. Seniors are shocked when they find they were NOT admitted but classified as "Outpatient Under Observation" costing them thousands in rehabilitation nursing care up to 21 days medicare coverage.

Attention Mr. President and Vice President (January 16, 2013),
Seniors need you to stand by your campaign promise not to cut Social Security and/or Medicare. A Chain CPI is a COLA cut to Social Security. Social Security does not contribute one cent to the national debt. The current CPI and the Chain CPI both fail to provide for health care and prescription inflation. If the GOP demands Social Security change then they should introduce legislation preventing anyone earning, inclusive of his or her investments, more than $300K from receiving Social Security. Or the GOP can require millionaires to pay FICA equivalent taxes on investment income.

Every time the GOP suggests cuts to Social Security and/or Medicare Democrats need to argue more cuts to defense and military spending. The military complex is bloated with contracts obtained by companies without requiring competitive open bids. The GOP is working toward gutting Social Security and Medicare in favor of vouchers. Mr. President we chose to reject GOP ideas including vouchers by electing you. We trusted you would keep your campaign promise to not cut Social Security and/or Medicare benefits.

I remain very concerned on behalf of seniors who are denied rehabilitation nursing care because Medicare allows an erroneous classification "Outpatient Under Observation" being abused by hospitals. This bogus classification is attached to seniors by hospitals DENYING seniors up to 21 days of rehabilitation nursing. Hospitals are attaching this classification without notifying seniors who think they were admitted for 3 or more days as needed to qualify for rehabilitation nursing care. Please take action to drop or demand hospitals notify seniors at hospital check in when they are NOT admitted but rather classified erroneously as "Outpatient Under Observation". The notification must be in writing, with explanation, requiring patient signature and a right to appeal the classification to Medicare.

We voted for you trusting you are a man of your word and would not allow the GOP to reduce our medicare and social security benefits. A fair change to the CPI is changing the basis of our COLA by using the CPI-E COLA formula that includes inflation for health care. The Chain CPI formula assumes if the cost of beef goes up then we will eat chicken. Fact is health care inflation reduces our ability to eat at all soon. Thank you for pushing for gun control but we need you to stand firm and keep your campaign promise on behalf of seniors, the needy, and our Veterans. We count on you not to allow a Chain CPI and/or other cuts to Social Security and Medicare. We respectfully submit our plea to protect Seniors, Disabled and Retired Veterans

Cc: Senators Sanders, Feinstein, Boxer, Leader Reid, Minority House Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats.

It should be illegal for our Federal lawmakers & our president to use our social security money for other than to pay social security benefits to those who paid into it all of their working years. The S.S. fund is seperate from the general fund of federal tax money used by the federal government to pay it's bills & expenses. The S.S. fund is paid for by the working people during their working years and not a penny of it comes from the federal government general fund. Our lawmakers & president have been using S.S. money for years to pay down the federal debt that they created themselves through their greed and self-made pay raises and c.o.l. raises when the government is trillions of dollars in debt to the rest of the world, especially China who we owe the most money. Their automatic pay raises, c.o.l. raises, & pet projects to their own districts just to get reelected helped to raise the federal defecit. Not the people who paid into social security, and are now collecting it, and this money should be illegal for them to use to pay down the defecit. They say they are borrowing this money, but, when you borrow money, you are supposed to pay it back sometime, and they never do, they just keep taking more. I say this is stealing S.S. money. If you borrow and never pay it back, it is stealing. Those who are doing it all the time never face any consequences. But, if the rest of the people steal, they are arrested and put in prison. How are they above the law and allowed to do it all the time with no punishment? Something is wrong with the United States government. There should be term limits on lawmakers, just like our own president, maybe most of these lawmakers wouldn't be in office today, we need all new ones.

Thankyou for standing up + fighting for us who are dependent on social security as our retirement income is just not enough with today's economy.