"Old age is greedy: it wants all my time.

You name it, it takes longer now than even two or three years ago. Walking, because it is our primary mode of transportation, is a big culprit. I'm slower now and when I think, for example, I'll make a quick stop at the market – just a quart of milk and loaf of bread – it takes 30 minutes and that's not counting the drive to and from.

This is a different phenomenon than the one I mentioned not long ago about time disappearing as though I had blacked out for awhile.

In this case, I am aware of time's passage and I suppose it's irritating because I am still unaccustomed to how much I have slowed down, making my time estimates all wrong."

Go here -> https://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2020/02/old-age-is-greedy.html

"Caring for a loved one at home can be rewarding, but it can also be overwhelming and take a toll on your own health, a new study suggests.

According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 5 of the nearly 18 million Americans who provide informal, unpaid care may be in fair or poor health.

"As the population of America ages and the number of older adults with diseases such as Alzheimer's continue to grow, there concomitantly has been a growth in the number of non-paid, informal caregivers," said Dr. Teresa Murray Amato, director of geriatric emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills in New York City."

Go here -> https://consumer.healthday.com/senior-citizen-information-31/caregiving-news-728/who-s-caring-for-family-caregivers-1-in-5-says-health-is-poor-755056.html

And here -> https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6907a2.htm?s_cid=mm6907a2_w

"You are a caregiver if you care for someone who needs help. Caregiving can be hard on you despite the great sense of reward you may feel. To continue being a good caregiver, you need to take care of yourself. One way you can do that is to make sure you have consistent breaks from your caregiving responsibilities. This is called respite. Short breaks can be a key part of maintaining your own health."

Go here -> https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/caring-for-yourself.html

"Today, many Americans rely on savings in 401(k)-type accounts to supplement Social Security in retirement. This is a pronounced shift from a few decades ago, when many retirees could count on predictable, constant streams of income from traditional pensions (see “Types of retirement plans” box). This chartbook assesses the impact of the shift from pensions to individual savings by examining disparities in retirement preparedness of working-age families, focusing especially on retirement account savings. The trends exhibited in these figures paint a picture of increasingly inadequate retirement savings for successive generations of Americans—and large disparities by income, race, ethnicity, education, and marital status.

Retirement wealth has not grown fast enough to keep pace with an aging population and other changes, and the shift from traditional pensions to individual savings has widened retirement gaps. Decades after the number of active participants in 401(k)-style plans edged out those in traditional pensions, 401(k)s are not delivering substantial income in retirement, and that income is not equally shared."

Go here -> https://www.epi.org/publication/the-state-of-american-retirement-savings/

And here -> https://www.epi.org/publication/the-state-of-american-retirement-savings/#chart1

Check out as educational/discussion stuff for boards and committees. Animation.

"Director, Schwartz Center in Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School for Social Research

Teresa Ghilarducci, Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at The New School for Social Research says there is a crisis and has ways we can save retirement. In this episode of INET Animates, Teresa Ghilarducci explores the pitfalls of the current do-it-yourself retirement system and shares some solutions for saving retirement so all seniors can live with security and dignity."

Go here -> https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/videos/saving-retirement

And here -> https://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/retirement-equity-lab

"Trump 2021 Budget Roundup," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, February 18, 2020
"In the face of a bitterly divided country that needs healing, President Trump today threw gasoline on the fire by releasing a stunningly harsh budget that would tear us further apart.

It would push tens of millions of less fortunate Americans into or deeper into poverty and cause widespread hardship even as it doubles down on tax cuts for the most well-off. It would take health coverage away from millions of people and cut aid to millions of families and individuals struggling to make ends meet. At the same time, the budget would make permanent the 2017 tax law’s tax cuts for individuals, which are heavily weighted toward the top. As a result, the budget would further widen inequality and racial disparities. . . ."

Go here -> https://www.cbpp.org/blog/trump-2021-budget-roundup

"President Trump’s 2021 budget proposes to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) by more than $180 billion — nearly 30 percent — over the next ten years by radically restructuring how benefits are delivered, taking SNAP away from millions of adults who are not working more than 20 hours a week, and reducing benefits for many other households.[1] The budget also includes two proposals to curtail students’ access to free and reduced-price school meals. The proposed cuts would come on top of nearly $50 billion in cuts over ten years that the Administration is seeking through regulatory action, bringing the Administration’s total plan for cutting SNAP to about $230 billion over ten years compared to current policies."

Go here -> https://www.cbpp.org/research/presidents-2021-budget-would-cut-food-assistance-for-millions-and-radically-restructure

"Health care prices still rising faster than use of services," Bob Herman, Axios, February 14, 2020
"Employers, workers and families continued to spend a lot more on health care in 2018, but that wasn't because people used more services, according to the latest annual spending report from the Health Care Cost Institute, which analyzes commercial health insurance claims.

The bottom line: Higher prices remain the main culprit for exploding spending among those with private health insurance.

By the numbers: Annual per-person spending among the commercially insured, after accounting for inflation and drug rebates that help reduce premiums, grew by an average of 3.8% between 2014 and 2018, according to HCCI."

Go here -> https://www.axios.com/health-care-prices-services-hcci-2018-903be20f-73dc-4622-9305-1e2c74845d6c.html

And here -> https://healthcostinstitute.org/health-care-cost-and-utilization-report/annual-reports

"Reducing the Health-Care Tax," Dean Baker and Jared Bernstein, Center for Economic and Policy Research, January 14, 2020
"One of most enduring, economically and socially damaging, downright frustrating facts about life in the United States is how expensive health care is here. Not only does U.S. health care cost far more than in other advanced economies, but compared with the nations that spend less, we have worse or equivalent health outcomes. In fact, U.S. life expectancy now lags behind that of all the advanced economies.

An MRI scan that cost $1,400 here went for $450 in Britain and $190 in Holland. Thirty tablets of a drug to reduce the risk of blood clots (Xarelto) cost $380 here, $70 in Britain, $80 in Switzerland and $60 in Holland. Hospital admission for angioplasty is $32,000 here, $15,000 in Australia, $12,000 in Britain, $7,000 in Switzerland, $6,000 in the Netherlands.

Add to those differences the latest outrage in health-care costs: surprise medical billing, when even well-insured patients can wake up from surgery finding that they owe thousands of dollars, because someone treating them while they were unconscious was out of their insurance network."

Go here -> https://cepr.net/reducing-the-health-care-tax/

"Timing is everything for low-income people who rely on federal benefits to survive.

For example, retirees who receive their Social Security checks early in the month and spend the money before the bills come in are more prone to fill the gap with high-cost payday loans than people who get their checks a few weeks later, a 2018 study found. New research in a similar vein shows that timing also matters for individuals who receive food aid under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP."

Go here -> https://squaredawayblog.bc.edu/squared-away/electric-bills-and-financial-survival/

And here -> https://squaredawayblog.bc.edu/squared-away/timing-of-social-security-checks-is-key/

"When Ed Stein signed up for Medicare eight years ago, the insurance choice seemed like a no-brainer.

Mr. Stein, a Denver retiree, could choose original, fee-for-service Medicare or its private managed-care alternative, Medicare Advantage. He was a healthy and active 65-year-old, and he picked Advantage for its extra benefits.

“The price was the same, I liked the access to gyms, and the drug plan was very good,” he recalled. After a pause, he added: “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be facing a crisis like the one I’m having now.”

In November, at age 72, Mr. Stein received a diagnosis of aggressive bladder cancer that would require chemotherapy and a complex surgical procedure. The doctor who he determined was the best local specialist for his condition was not in his network, so Mr. Stein decided to switch to original Medicare for 2020 — a move that would allow him to see nearly any health care provider he chose."

Go here -> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/business/medicare-advantage-retirement.html?referringSource=articleShare

"A government report released Thursday found health insurance companies had combed through patient charts to obtain billions of dollars of additional payments from the federal Medicare program.

The report, from the federal inspector general’s office, examined payments billed by insurers for those covered by private Medicare Advantage plans, which are increasingly popular and heavily promoted by the Trump administration. The findings showed that insurers were adding on conditions like diabetes and even cancer, reporting that patients were sicker, to receive higher payments from Medicare."

Go here -> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/health/medicare-advantage-inspector-general.html?searchResultPosition=1

And here -> https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-03-17-00470.asp

"What I want is to figure out a way of being, of carving out a space to live in that doesn't always include disease at the edge – and forefront, too - of my consciousness.

Sometimes the wish comes to me as empty space and time, when cancer and COPD take a nap for a while and leave me as I was before all this happened. A mini-vacation. Maybe even a whole day of it now and then."

Go here -> https://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2020/02/trying-to-make-a-respite-from-and-for-myself.html

"Some states call them assisted living facilities; others, residential or personal care homes. These state-licensed facilities promise peace of mind for families whose elders require long-term care. In Vermont and elsewhere, investigations into these homes have revealed lax oversight, injuries and deaths.

Few understand the risks like June Kelly. Her mother, Marilyn Kelly, was energetic and loved to go fishing when she moved into Our House Too, a 13-bed facility that advertised its memory-care expertise. Over the next eight months, almost everything went wrong that could. Often, her daughters arrived to find their 78-year-old mom in a stupor. June arrived one day to discover Marilyn trying to feed herself but unable to find her mouth with her fork."

Go here -> https://www.npr.org/2020/02/17/804901227/lax-regulations-and-vulnerable-residents-a-recipe-for-problems-in-eldercare-home

And here - > https://www.vpr.org/post/worse-care-when-elder-homes-stumble-frail-vermonters-get-hurt#stream/0

"Devyani Dave immigrated from India to California in 1995 in her early 60s to live near her son and his family. Her green card was sponsored by her son (who prefers not to reveal his name), a citizen who came to the U.S. in 1973. When Dave arrived to start her new life, she had no health insurance and relied on her son to support her. Now, sitting on a bench at Priya Living, a senior community facility in Santa Clara, Calif., Dave said she feels fortunate to be in close proximity to her only child, especially as she ages.

But some immigration experts say the Trump administration’s new “public charge” rule, going into effect by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on February 24, 2020, nationwide (except in Illinois, due to a legal challenge), will no longer welcome people in similar circumstances as Dave. That’s because, the analysts say, it will deem them likely to become liabilities for America."

Go here-> https://www.nextavenue.org/public-charge-rule-immigrants/

"Madison's Hmong community seeking answers to questions about deportation threat," By Nicholas Garton, Wisconsin State Journal, February 15, 2020

 On Wisconsin. Repost.

"Peng Her kept repeating the same question: “Why is this happening to us?”

Her, who currently runs Kajsiab House where many members of the city’s Hmong elder community gather, said there is a profound sense of betrayal among the group over news this week that the Trump administration plans to deport Lao and Hmong immigrants who are not U.S. citizens and have standing deportation orders.

Talks between administration officials and Laotian officials are ongoing, but Her and others are concerned about conditions in the country many fled in the 1970s to seek refuge in the U.S. The elders in the Madison Hmong community have more questions than answers about the news and threats of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. No one knows what is coming or when. No one knows who will be removed from their homes or how."

Go here -> https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/madison-s-hmong-community-seeking-answers-to-questions-about-deportation/article_bd4ba2b8-8f74-5abe-bc67-cd52613cf8d8.html

And here -> https://www.wpr.org/hmong-leaders-rally-against-trump-administrations-deportation-push

"Vos and Fitzgerald have held the voters of Wisconsin captive to their own narrow interests for far too long. And they have continually misrepresented the truth about the legality and constitutionality of the strongly supported and nonpartisan antidote to partisan gerrymandering."

Go here -> http://madisonstatejournal.wi.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=12d9ae28c

"The 2011 redistricting succeeded in its goal of making it practically impossible for Democrats to win the Wisconsin legislature. Although Vos has been cagey about whether he will try to repeat that he seems to be intent in cutting out the governor."

Go here - > https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/02/05/data-wonk-the-republicans-gerrymander-scheme/