GBO NEWS: Journalism Fellows Named; Norman Lear in Silicon Valley; Medicare-Medicaid at 50
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations
May 27, 2015 — Volume 15, Number 8
Editor’s Note: GBO News, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generation publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. Send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. You can subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge simply by sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. You’ll receive the table of contents as e-mail, just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org.
IN THIS ISSUE: B.J. Leiderman Did Not Write Our Theme Music (You Did).
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE: ***National Press Foundation’s Taps 18 for “Retirement” Fellowships; *** Columbia University’s Age Boom Academy names 20 Journalism Fellows; *** June 22 is the Applications Deadline for two Society of Professional Journalists Awards
2. THE CONFERENCE BEAT: ***The 2015 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit, June 30, with Keynote by Norman Lear, New York Times’ Eric Taub and many more.
3. THE STORYBOARD: ***Modern Healthcare Special Issue: “Medicare and Medicaid: The Next Half Century”; ***Health Affairs’ “Aging & Health Series”; *** “Jane Gross–The Far Shore of Aging” interview by Krista Tippett’s Public Radio show, “On Being”; *** Refugees Aging in Indiana Series by Jennifer Boen in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel; *** “Calming Dementia Patients — Without Powerful Drugs,” by Rachel Dornhelm on KQED Public Radio; *** “Aging-in-Place May Be a Fountain of Youth Secret,” by Rita Watson, Psychology Today
4. GOOD SOURCES: *** “Massachusetts Healthy Aging Data Report” from the UMass Boston Gerontology Institute; *** “Scrimping and Saving: A report on financial access, attitudes and behaviors of low- and moderate-income Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” from the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE: And the Winning Fellows Are . . .
***The National Press Foundation’s (NPF) Tapped 18 Reporters for fellowships to attend it’s 11th Annual Fellowship, “Reporting Retirement: Finding New Angles.” The four-day look at retirement is set for June 7-10, in Washington, D.C. The intensive seminar will examine a wide range of issues, such as the growing diversity of the elder boom; later-life career opportunities, including volunteer contributions; pension challenges; the future of 401k’s and Social Security; and what about the aging tomorrow of Gen X—which started turning age 50 this year—and Millennials?
Unlike many other journalism seminars, NPF will make the content available online soon following the program, including video, blogs, audio and slide presentations. (Funding for the program comes from Prudential Financial.)
Congratulations to the 2015 NPF Retirement Fellows: Ann Brenoff, Huffington Post; Rodney Brooks, USA Today; Joseph Bustos, Belleville [Ill.] News-Democrat; Jackie Crosby, Generation Reporter, Minneapolis Star Tribune; Kelli Grant, CNBC.com; Jack Kahn, Retirement Profits newsletter, Newsmax Media, Miami; Angela Kennecke, KELO-TV (Sioux Falls, S.D.); Randy Leonard | CQ Roll Call; Larry Lipman, AARP Bulletin; Katie Lobosco, CNN Money; Melissa Long, WXIA-TV & WATL-TV (Atlanta, GA); Aimee Picchi, CBS MoneyWatch; Laura Shin, Freelance Journalist (Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company); Barbara Peters Smith, Health and Aging Reporter, Sarasota Herald Tribune; Sheyna Steiner, Bankrate.com; Lori Valigra, Mainebiz; Janine Weisman, Editor, Newport [R.I.] Mercury; Paul Wiseman, Associated Press.
*** “Global Aging: Danger Ahead?” is the theme of the 2015 Age Boom Academy at Columbia University, June 11-13. This year the program has tapped 20 reporters for expenses-paid fellowships to attend the seminar in New York, supported by The Atlantic Philanthropies. They will hear international experts enlisted to help journalists get beyond myths that have evolved about global aging. According to their website, sessions are designed to do that “by disrupting myths: Cities are for young people? Families take care of their elders? Challenges of aging societies are limited to developing countries?”
Among the speakers will be Isabella Aboderin, African Population and Health Research Center; keynoter John Beard, World Health Organization; Maurizio Bussolo, The World Bank; Helen R. Hamlin, International Federation on Ageing; Paula Span, Columbia Journalism School and “New Old Age” columnist at the New York Times; and Thomas Spoorenberg, United Nations.
The Age Boom Academy is sponsored by the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, honoring the late Pulitzer Prize-winning geriatrician, who established the Academy program at his International Longevity Center.
Kudos to the 2015 class of Academy Fellows: Nuwea Ben Modika, Cameroon Radio Television Corporation; Kate Cox, former health and aging reporter, Uptown Radio (NYC) contributor: Nation, Huffington Post; Rich Eisenberg, Editor, PBS Next Avenue; Erin Ellis, Vancouver Sun; Chris Farrell, author Unretirement, contributor, Marketplace & others; Kerry Hannon, New York Times, Forbes & others; Carol Hymowitz, Bloomberg; Ina Jaffe, Age Beat Reporter, NPR News; Foo Fong Loh, The Star (Malaysia); Mark Miller, Reuters, Retirement Revised; Irene Noguchi, KQED Public Radio, San Francisco; Heleaine Olen, author Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and contributor, Reuters, Slate, The Baffler; María Pastora Sandoval Campos, OldAge.cl, Clinical Health Media Network; Liz Seegert, Aging Topics Editor, Association of Health Care Journalists, HealthStyles, Center for Health, Media & Policy at Hunter College; Laura Tillman, author, contributor: New York Times, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal; John Wasik, author of 14 books, Reuters columnist, contributor, New York Times, Morning Star, others; Thomas Watkins, Freelance Journalist; Mimi Whitefield, Cuba Correspondent, Miami Herald; Jim Wyss, Latin American correspondent, Miami Herald; and PBS documentary producer Christine Herbes-Somers, Vital Pictures, Boston.
*** June 22 is the Applications Deadline for two top Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Awards. The Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award, Recognizes, with a $10,000 prize, accomplishments on behalf of First Amendment freedoms by an individual, group of individuals or an organization. Says the SPJ website, “Nominations are open to any person, persons or organization in the U.S. or its territories who have worked to protect the basic rights provided by the First Amendment. Honorees do not have to be journalists. In fact, the Foundation encourages recognition of those outside the journalism profession for their First Amendment efforts and initiatives, such as, but not limited to, public officials, members of the legal profession, scholars, educators, librarians, students and ordinary citizens.”
The Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writing “awards $75,000 to an outstanding editorial writer or columnist to help broaden his or her journalistic horizons and knowledge of the world. The annual award can be used to cover the cost of study, research and/or travel in any field. The fellowship results in editorials and other writings, including books.” (Ah, yes, we all know how the prices of textbooks have skyrocketed. But if you get it, don’t spend it all on one title.)
These honors are named for the late publisher of the Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis News, Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette. They are presented by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, SPJ’s supporting foundation. If you have any questions, please contact Awards Coordinator Abbi Martzall at awards@spj.org or 317-920-4791.
2. THE CONFERENCE BEAT
*** The 2015 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit at Santa Clara University, June 30, will offer attending reporters a treasure trove of stories on new business and technology developments in aging, including insights into product and service trends for the maturing marketplace.
The annual event can also be great for health reporters. For instance, among this year’s speakers will be Ambika Bumb, PhD, CEO of Bikanta Corporation and winner of the Summit’s $10,000 Boomer Business Plan Competition last year. She developed nanodiamonds used to detect molecular abnormalities in cancer much earlier to help stop the disease from spreading. Reporters covering the conference will also see the 2015 competition finalists pitch their creations to a panel of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, who will then announce this year’s winner.
The keynoter: Norman Lear of All in the Family, Sanford & Son, and the Nixon Enemies List. Last fall, Lear, who turns 93 on July 27, published Even This I Get to Experience (Penguin Press).
Journalists on this year’s program include Eric Taub, author and New York Times’ writer on technology and society. Also moderating a panel will be Heather Somerville, a business and tech reporter for the Bay Area News Group (San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, and others).
To request a complimentary press registration, contact Lisa Miller, at lmiller@susandavis.com.
3. THE STORYBOARD
*** “Medicare and Medicaid: The Next Half Century” is the special issue published this week from Crain’s Modern Healthcare, marking the 50th anniversary of those prime War on Poverty programs. The cluster of articles reviews that programs’ contentious beginnings–echoed by that of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)–immanent changes, and interviews (some in print and some online audio recordings) with 16 experts from across the political spectrum.
In “Demands of an aging population will have Medicare, Medicaid fighting for dollars” editor Merrill Goozner begins, “ Medicare and Medicaid evolved in dramatically different ways. Medicare, which provided health coverage for seniors, became the third rail of American politics. Medicaid, a state-based program that provided health coverage for the poor, existed in a political netherworld. All that is about to change.”
News and feature editor Harris Meyer, in “Will Medicare and Medicaid predict ACA’s future?” summarizes the history of federal health care programs from presidential efforts by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and how “Harry Truman’s 1948 bid for a universal, single-payer plan failed because of opposition from conservatives and organized medicine, supporters focused on expanding coverage for the elderly.”
Meyer continues, “Both President Johnson and President Barack Obama learned from their predecessors’ failed healthcare reform attempts. Liberals made major compromises to win passage. Both efforts avoided strict cost controls to avoid stirring up healthcare industry opposition. But there also were important differences . . . . One lesson Obama and fellow Democrats failed to learn from Johnson was the importance of getting the program off to a strong, fast start. That Obamacare weakness gave opponents ammunition Medicare’s foes never had.”
He concludes, “Nevertheless, observers agree that it’s hard to take back government benefits that millions of Americans have come to appreciate and that also help powerful healthcare industry groups.”
Among other pieces are “Uncapped programs fuel vast expansion of healthcare sector,” by Steven Ross Johnson, and “Medicaid a lifeline for the poor and disabled, by Virgil Dickson, both staff writers.
The section’s debate concisely punches up the politi-sophical differences between right and left in Washington. The commentary by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, is headlined, “Defined-contribution model would improve care.” The former director of the Congressional Budget Office and chief economist of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, Holtz-Eakin aims right jabs to wear down his opponent: “Unlike top-down regulatory models such as the Affordable Care Act, the use of bidding, decentralized coordinated-care plans and other competitive features permit success and failure on small scales to identify the most advantageous routes to the future.”
From across the ring, Judy Feder comes out swing her left hook in “Medicare, Medicaid protect us from healthcare risks.” Feder, a Georgetown University professor, managed the failed 1994 Clinton health care plan and later served as an official in President Clinton’s Department of Health and Human Services–which could happen again, perhaps, in a future Clinton White House. She writes, “Changes could be made in Medicare and Medicaid to better protect us—including a Medicare cap on out-of-pocket spending, Medicaid expansion in all states, better long-term-care protection, and better management of costs and overpayments. But that means managing the risk, not shifting it. That’s what government is supposed to do.”
*** The Health Affairs’ “Aging & Health Series”: The leading peer-reviewed journal on health policy, Health Affairs, continues to publish some of the most significant research and analyses on senior health and health care coming out today. Published six times a year by the nonprofit Project Hope, the journal also releases articles on its website weekly and maintains a searchable archive of their articles run over it’s quarter-century of publication. Besides publishing ongoing research on aging, such as a couple of articles in the May 2015 issue, on mental health and on Medicare-Medicaid’s five-star nursing home ratings, Health Affairs has produced quite a few special issues on aging-health research.
The more recent special issue on aging last January 2015 Health Affairs includes such articles as, “How Does Where You Live Today Affect How You Think About Future Need For Long-Term Care?” by scholars at the University of Minnesota, who asked adults ages 40–65 whether they expect to need continuing care some day. They found, says the abstract, “Overall, 40 percent of all respondents believed they were likely to need long-term services and supports in the future. In contrast, evidence suggests that almost 70 percent of older adults will need them at some point.”
Some of the other papers are, “Aging In Rural America,” by noted gen-beat journalist Susan Jaffe; “Medicare Annual Preventive Care Visits: Use Increased Among Fee-For-Service Patients, But Many Do Not Participate”; “The Invisible Homebound: Setting Quality-Of-Care Standards For Home-Based Primary And Palliative Care”; and “Nearly Half of All Medicare Hospice Enrollees Received Care From Agencies Owned By Regional Or National Chains.”
More recently, Health Affairs’ May 2015 issue includes, “Among The Elderly, Many Mental Illnesses Go Undiagnosed,” by the journal’s senior editor Jonathan S. Bors. He found, “Few health care providers have the training to address depression, anxiety, and other conditions in their older patients.”
It also offers, “Nursing Home 5-Star Rating System Exacerbates Disparities In Quality, By Payer Source.” Author Tamara Konetzka of the University of Chicago, and her colleagues found, “Market-based reforms in health care, such as public reporting of quality, may inadvertently exacerbate disparities.” They determined that the Medicare-Medicaid five-star rating system for nursing homes has resulted in a widening gap between low-income patients eligible for both programs (so-called dual eligibles) and those who can afford better quality homes.
Although the star ratings, which enable consumers to see which homes offer better or lower quality care, have led to both “duals” and others to move into higher-quality homes, the improvements for dual eligibles “was largely due to providers’ improving their ratings, not to consumers’ choosing different providers. We present evidence suggesting that supply constraints play a role in limiting dual eligibles’ responses to quality ratings, since high-quality providers tend to be located close to relatively affluent areas. Increases in Medicaid payment rates for nursing home services may be the only long-term solution.”
Health Affairs does have a paywall. Abstracts, of course, are available at no charge, so reporters can see what might be worth pursuing. Free online access to full articles is a member benefit of the Association of Health Care Journalists. Reporters who are not AHCJ members (at an annual rate far that’s lower the journalist $125 subscription fee) might try contacting their press office or individual article authors for particular studies. At Health Affairs, check with Chris Fleming at 301-347-3944 about how to obtain a particular article, if you’re a nonsubscriber/nonmember.
*** “Jane Gross–The Far Shore of Aging” (May 7), is an interview by Krista Tippett on her “On Being” public radio show. Gross, founder of the New York Times’ “New Old Age,” is the author of A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents — and Ourselves (Vintage, 2012). The book, was also a catalyst for the PBS special, “Caring for Mom & Dad,”, also premiered May 7 and currently showing on many PBS stations. (Check local listings.)
*** Refugees Aging in Indiana? You bet. Long-time age-beat reporter Jennifer Boen researched and wrote these articles for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel through the Journalists in Aging Fellows collaboration between New America Media (NAM) and the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), with sponsorship by AARP. The newspaper originated the pieces, May 11 and 12 in two packages. And NAM included them on its website as a three-part series, with links to the initial News-Sentinel versions:
Part 1 — “Older Refugees Face Challenges Trying to Maintain SSI Aid”: Somali refugee Sugow Said was stunned when Social Security cut off his income. Many more face the same dilemma.
Part 2–“Refugee Elders Escape Somali Strife–Now Struggle to Survive U.S. Bureaucracy”: In his 60s and on dialysis, refugee Sugow Said escaped Somali strife and resettled in Indiana. But his SSI has been cut–and he’s fighting to survive bureaucracy.
Part 3 –“Refugee Elders Escape Somali Strife–Now Struggle to Survive U.S. Bureaucracy”: In his 60s and on dialysis, refugee Sugow Said escaped Somali strife and resettled in Indiana. But his SSI has been cut–and he’s fighting to survive bureaucracy.
*** “Calming Dementia Patients — Without Powerful Drugs” is another NAM/GSA fellowship piece, also with AARP support, by Rachel Dornhelm for KQED public radio in San Francisco (May 21). She focuses this seven-minute piece and accompanying written version on how nursing homes often drug dementia patients to manage their behavior. But Dornhelm also featured facilities that are successfully using “person-centered care” without antipsychotics.
*** “Aging-in-Place May Be a Fountain of Youth Secret,” by Rita Watson, Psychology Today, examines the impact of the Village Movement from Boston’s Beacon Hill, where it all began. The piece is tagged, “During Elder Americans Month, we are reminded of alternatives to facility care.”
4. GOOD SOURCES
*** The Massachusetts Healthy Aging Data Report: Community Profiles 2015 is an online compilation of community-specific health-related information created by researchers at the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and commissioned by the Tufts Health Plan Foundation. As with other items in this issue of GBONews, it’s a localized source that may suggest approaches and questions for reporters in other states.
The 2015 study, which follows up on their initial study form last December, “provides the ‘big picture’ about the health of older citizens in each of the 351 cities and towns of Massachusetts, as well as the 16 neighborhoods of Boston” on health areas, such as asthma, voter registration and traffic fatalities involving older adults, according to the study release.
The “2015 Highlights Report” also explores racial disparities and includes a new composite gauge – the Serious Complex Chronic Disease measure – “which distills 40 chronic disease indicators found to be positively associated with higher mortality rates. This measure is used to identify those communities that are most and least healthy.”Bottom of Form
The key findings are:
- Income and education levels had more influence than any other variable on community population health.
- Communities with lower crime rates and higher voter participation rates tend to be healthier.
- Communities that are more racially diverse tend to have better health.
- Healthy behaviors and preventive services make a difference in healthy aging.
U Mass Boston gerontologist Elizabeth Dugan was the principal investigator of the report, working with professors Frank Porell and Nina Silverstein, and their team of students at the university’s Institute of Gerontology. The findings are posted on the interactive Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative website. The Tufts Health Foundation has also commissioned the Gerontology Institute to produce a report in Rhode Island.
“These are not data that sit on a shelf,” said Silverstein. “Community leaders are able to print these profiles out, see where they’re doing better or worse than state rates, for example, how are they doing in terms of prevalence of chronic conditions.”
*** “Scrimping and Saving: A report on financial access, attitudes and behaviors of low- and moderate-income Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” reveals the pervasive financial vulnerability of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) – the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the country. It was released in April by the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD).
Interestingly, the study was supported by the National Council of La Raza and the financial corporation, Citi. It focuses on how age, ethnicity, immigration status, English language fluency and other variables influence access to financial information, services and products.
Some of the main findings:
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Heavy reliance on friends and family to provide financial advice in the absence of reliable, trusted sources. Over half of the respondents (56percent) either did not know where to turn for financial advice, or turned to potentially unreliable sources.
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Almost a quarter (23%) of respondents were unaware of where or how to obtain emergency funds if needed or were doubtful if they could raise it at all, leaving them vulnerable to predatory financial services like payday lenders.
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Recent immigrants were particularly at risk (36 percent) with lower rates of bank account ownership, greater reliance on cash for daily transactions, and an inability to conduct financial transactions in English.
National CAPACD released the analysis in Los Angeles, with U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, on hand. She is quoted in the release explaining that AAPIs “constitute a diverse community comprised of ethnic subgroups that have some of the highest levels of poverty and the lowest per capita income compared to other populations. This is due in large part to cultural and linguistic hurdles that prevent many AAPIs from accessing financial information, services, and capital.”
The study call for greater innovations in the asset-building field that capitalize on the strength of familial and peer relationships, already a trusted resource for many low-income AAPIs, and to work with local community based organizations to develop investment solutions, such as peer lending circles and intergenerational educational approaches, both currently being implemented by National CAPACD’s members.
A key goal of the program, said Bob Annibale, Global Director of Citi Community Development, is to use the disaggregated data showing issues for different AAPI groups to design appropriate information, coaching, financial products and services “to expand financial access and capability, supporting individuals and families to achieve their goals,”
Other participating organizations include Chhaya Community Development Corporation (Jackson Heights, NY); Chinese American Service League (Chicago, IL); Chinese Community Center (Houston, TX); East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (Oakland, CA); Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (Long Beach, CA); Korean Resource Center (Los Angeles, CA); and Thai Community Development Center (Los Angeles, CA).
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