GBO NEWS: Last New Orleans Fellowship Chance; Happiness of the Oldest-Old; Hamilton? Try Social Security Innovator–Thomas Paine; Immortality at NYT; AARP Shamed; & More
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations
Aug. 11 , 2016 — Volume 16, Number 13
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: Our E-Mails Are Unclassified AND Unloaded.
1. GEN BEATLES NEWS: ***Monday Application Deadline for Journalists in Aging Fellowships for New Orleans Conference; ***Gen-Beat Pioneer Sandy Rovner Dies at 88; ***Judy Graham to Start New Kaiser Health News Column on Aging & Health; ***New York Times Bestows Immortality on the Healthy.
2. THE BOOKMOBILE: *** NYT’s John Leland Signs Book Deal on Happiness … Among the Oldest Old; *** Pensionless: The 10-Step Solution for a Stress-Free Retirement by Emily Brandon
3. FISCAL REFORM SCHOOL: *** “The Case for More Government and Higher Taxes,” by Eduardo Porter, New York Times (Aug. 3); *** “Hamilton?” Lin-Manuel, Check Out Social Security Innovator–Thomas Paine; “What’s Going on With CBO’s Social Security Projections?” by Center for Retirement Research Director Alicia H. Munnell, MarketWatch.
4. THE STORYBOARD: *** “A Shamed AARP Withdraws from Right-Wing Lobbying Organization ALEC,” by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times; *** “DIAGNOSIS UNPREPARED: Elderly Hospital Patients Arrive Sick, Often Leave Disabled,” by Anna Gorman, Kaiser Health News; *** “Short-term care insurance policies on the rise in niche market,” by Barbara Marquand, NerdWallet/Christian Science Monitor; *** “Book Up for a Longer Life: Readers Die Later, Study Finds,” by Alison Flood, The Guardian; *** “Why Trump and Clinton Need to Join the Conversation on Retirement Security,” by Dan Kadlec, Money; *** “Closed Social Security offices, furloughed staff under GOP cuts, agency warns,” by Joe Davidson, Washington Post.
1. GEN BEATLES NEWS
*** Next Monday, Aug. 15, Is the Application Deadline for This Year’s Journalists in Aging Fellows Program. But GBONews readers interested in applying but who are concerned about the tight timing should contact Paul Kleyman (see the following e-mail and phone number). Sponsored by New America Media (NAM) and the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) for the seventh year, the program’s panel of journalists and gerontologists will select 2016-17 Fellows to attend GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting in New Orleans, Nov. 16-20 (all expenses paid), and receive a $1,500 stipend. Both mainstream and ethnic media reporters are invited to apply. The application details and form are at http://tinyurl.com/plrvuqy. Questions? Contact: Paul Kleyman (NAM Senior Editor), 415-503-4170 ext. 133; pkleyman@newamericamedia.org. This year’s nonprofit sponsors are the Silver Century Foundation, AARP, the Commonwealth Fund, the Retirement Research Foundation, and the John A. Hartford Foundation.
*** One of the Generations-Beat Originals, Naomi (Sandy) Rovner, 88, died Aug. 4. The news was posted on Facebook by her daughter, Kaiser Health News reporter Julie Rovner. Among many honors, while covering health and aging at the Washington Post, Sandy received one of the first American Society on Aging (1991) Media Awards and participated in one of the early meetings that lead to the founding of the Journalists Network on Generations, publisher of GBONews.org. (ASA discontinued the award after two decades.)
Julie, formerly of NPR News, let friends and admirers know, “Mom died peacefully at her group home in Bethesda [Maryland] after suffering a stroke late last month. She broke so many gender barriers; her biggest regret was not living to see Hillary Clinton become the first woman President of the U.S.”
Among her Mom’s accomplishments was becoming the first female assistant city editor of the Baltimore Sun (1970). She was a co-founder of the WaPo’s Health section. “Also,” Julie added, “two sources say she broke the Sun newsroom taboo against women wearing pants,” perhaps blazing the pant-suit tail for the likes of Hillary. There will be a memorial service in September. Her Twitter account is @jrovner.
*** Judy Graham’s New Kaiser Health News Column on Aging & Health will start in early September. It will run twice a month. Graham wrote many of the NYT’s “New Old Age” blogs before the Times demoted it to a bimonthly print column and previously ran the Association of Health Care Journalists core topic on Aging, among many other credits. Noting that the first KHN column will appear in early September, she added in an e-mail, “It’s a great gig and I’m so pleased!” GBO readers can reach her at judithegraham@gmail.com; 303-399-2623.
*** The New York Times’ Immortality Beat: “Extensive research shows that people who say they are in poor health really are much more likely to die than those who describe their health as good.” From “Obamacare Appears to Be Making People Healthier,” by Margot Sanger-Katz (Aug. 9)
2. THE BOOKMOBILE
*** New York Times Reporter John Leland just signed a deal to publish his new book tentatively titled, Happiness Is a Choice You Make And Other Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old. The cheerful publisher will be Sarah Crichton Books (an imprint of Farrar Straus Giroux).
Throughout 2015, he followed a diverse sample of six people ages 85 an older for his yearlong series, “A Group Portrait of New York’s Oldest Old,” [http://tinyurl.com/j3j565q] providing the core research for his book. Beyond the original six, Leland followed up more recently with a new interview. In “Milton Glaser Still Hearts New York,” (July 29) Leland visited the studio of the 87-year-old design legend, who created the iconic “I Heart NY” emblem. I
Happiness … will be Leland’s second book, preceded by his 2005 tome, Hip: The History (Harper Perennial), the story of how American pop culture evolved through the 20th century—and beyond.
As one prominent “inspiration” for the series and book, Leland credits Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, who could be heard on NPR’s “TED Radio Hour” (Aug. 5) titled “Shifting Time.” According to the TED website, the psychologist “demonstrates that as people get older they become happier, more content, and have a more positive outlook on the world.” Her full TED Talk (December 2011), which you can hear or read online, has over a million “views” (listens?).
*** Pensionless: The 10-Step Solution for a Stress-Free Retirement, by Emily Brandon, Adams Media (paperback, 2016): Brandon, senior editor for retirement at U.S. News & World Report, examines options for the more than half of U.S. workers heading toward their retirement years without a pension. She addresses the retirement benefits available to then, how to use them correctly and how to avoid potential pitfalls, such as getting docked with surcharges on Medicare benefits. The book looks at “how to increase Social Security and employer-sponsored benefits to help pay for retirement, and how to minimize costs and boost the value of your existing retirement benefits.” Request press review copies (e-book or hard copy) from Bethany Carland-Adams at Bethany.Carland-Adams@fwcommunity.com.
3. FISCAL REFORM SCHOOL
*** “The Case for More Government and Higher Taxes,” by Eduardo Porter, New York Times (Aug. 3): The NYT economics columnist begins, “It may be hard to remember, but Americans once appreciated the government that serves them. That’s long gone.” Porter reports that Pew Research Center findings that “four out of every five — or more — have said the government makes them feel either angry or frustrated. Last March, that included 78 percent of Bernie Sanders’ supporters and 98 percent of those backing Donald J. Trump.” Why? “More than half of voters — including 61 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters — feel they are not keeping up with the rising cost of living,” Porter says.
“Yet it’s not as if nothing can be done,” he goes on. Porter discusses the new book, How Big Should Our Government Be? (University of California Press), by Jeff Madrick of the Century Foundation and three academic colleagues.
Porter summarizes, “Their strategy includes more investment in the nation’s buckling infrastructure and expanding unemployment and health insurance. It calls for paid sick leave, parental leave and wage insurance for workers who suffer a pay cut when changing jobs. And they argue for more resources for poor families with children and for universal early childhood education.”
Their agenda would raise government spending by 10 percentage points of the nation’s gross domestic product ($1.8 trillion in today’s dollars), to bring it to some 48 percent of G.D.P. by 2065: “That might sound like a lot of money. But it is roughly where Germany, Norway and Britain are today. And it is well below government spending in countries like France, Sweden and Denmark.” Porter also examines conservative objections by economists, such as Nobel laureate Edward Prescott.
Porter adds later, “In recent decades, the nation’s difficult racial divide has played a crucial role in checking the growth of public services. It is much easier to build support for the welfare state when taxpayers identify with beneficiaries. In multifarious America, race and other ethnic barriers stood in the way.
He continues, “Mr. Trump’s supporters may not champion welfare. But they mistrust it less than your orthodox Republican. More of his supporters think the government should do more to help American families. More think corporate profits are too large. More think the economy is rigged to help the powerful. Fewer want to cut Social Security. The ground is shifting under Democrats, too.” He goes on, though, “This does not mean, of course, that Big Government will get its day.” For starters he begins with the House of Representatives.
*** “Hamilton?” Lin-Manuel, Check Out Thomas Paine: We call them blogs, but 240 years ago they were pamphlets, most famously “Common Sense,” the argument that turned colonial sentiment firmly toward fighting for independence from Great Britain. It turns out that besides helping spark the American Revolution, Thomas Paine also gave us the concept of social insurance, you know, what the right derides a “socialist” entitlements. But Paine explained the idea, now adopted in variations internationally, as a reasonable alternative to both callus indifference of England’s Poor Laws on the one side, and the harshly intrusive central-planning model of the French Revolution’s dismal Directory, on the other.
In her new article, “Common Property: How Social Insurance Became Confused with Socialism” (Boston Review), Elizabeth Anderson writes that the key features of Paine’s approach “were generosity, universality, and entitlement.” She adds, “These features ensured every adult’s personal independence, with no one forced to forgo their liberty as a condition of subsistence.”
Anderson explains how in modern times, economist Friedrich Hayek, a refugee from Nazi Germany, became the darling of the American right and fomented the conservative views of influential University of Chicago economists like Milton Friedman. Hayek’s book, The Road to Surfdom, popularized the idea that giving people a helping hand through welfare programs makes them weak and dependent.
This editor learned about Anderson’s historical essay from a blog by Bill Arnone, the new CEO of the nonpartisan National Academy for Social Insurance. His piece, “Why Does the United States Lack a Comprehensive Social Insurance System?” offers this summary of Anderson’s argument. Among her major contentions, he says, Anderson holds:
* Ideological opposition to social insurance has portrayed it as a “socialist or communist scheme designed to undermine private property and free markets.” That approach, she shows, assumes that “poverty was either inevitable–in the case of disability or death of able-bodied workers within the family–or caused by vices such as laziness, alcoholism, gambling, and sexual licentiousness.”
* Social insurance represented a novel way to address poverty–“compatible with individual liberty, universal dignity, equal democratic citizenship, and distributive justice.” For Germany’s Otto von Bismarck, who instituted the first such plan, as well as for Paine, writes Anderson, “Social insurance was erected as a defense against communist and socialist revolution, and as proof that a system of private property and markets could deliver a decent standard of living and security to all.”
* Social insurance aims to “promote the security of the middle class,” unlike anti-poverty programs. “This accounts for their worldwide popularity,” Anderson stresses.
*** “What’s going on with CBO’s Social Security Projections?” Boston College retirement expert and former U.S. Treasury official Alicia H. Munnell is questioning the Congressional Budget Office’s “strange” tripling of their 2010 estimate of Social Security’s 75-years deficit projection in their latest calculation. It outstrips other calibrations by the Social Security’s actuaries and its Technical Panel, which Munnell once chaired. Her blog ran on MarketWatch (July 27.) She was responding to the new report, “Spending for Social Security and Major Health Care Programs in The Long-Term Budget Outlook” posted Aug. 1, on the CBO website.
Munnell, who directs Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, wrote, “I was knocked over by CBO’s new estimate of the 75-year deficit at 4.8 percent. The … number looks strange, particularly when viewed in the context of the agency’s own previous estimates. What on earth has CBO learned since 2010 that would lead to a tripling of the deficit estimate?” Talk about a ruler across the economic knuckles. It’s a good reminder to financial writers to question institutional authority and not merely echo reports, even from rarified heights.
4. THE STORYBOARD
*** “A Shamed AARP Withdraws from Right-Wing Lobbying Organization ALEC,” by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times (Aug. 5): The Pulitzer Prize-winning LAT business columnist wrote, “AARP, the retirees organization, responded Thursday [Aug. 4] to a torrent of protests from members and advocacy groups by announcing that it would drop its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council, the right-wing organization known as ALEC.”
Progressive advocates led by Social Security Works (SSW) and its Strengthening Social Security Coalition says it generated over 53,000 petition signatures within a day. That caused AARP to post a Facebook notice stating, “After hearing from many of you, we’ve decided not to renew our membership to ALEC. We would never work against the interests of older Americans and our engagement with ALEC was NOT an endorsement of the organization’s policies, but an opportunity to engage with state legislators and advance our members’ priorities.”
SSW’s website added, “In addition to big pharma, much of ALEC’s funding comes from the billionaire Koch Brothers.”
As Hiltzik explained, ALEC promotes policies sharply at odds with the interests of seniors and retirees, such as pushing for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Among other things ACA has closed the “donut hole” in Medicare’s Part D prescription drug program, saving older patients millions of dollars. ALEC led the opposition to Medicaid expansion under Obamacare; targeted public pensions, pushing to cap benefits and shift workers toward 401(k)-type plans with their market risks. Their GOP-only membership also drafted state legislation in recent decades, such measures increasing harsh sentencing and supporting the building of more private prisons, a pattern that has helped undermine low-income, especially African America and Latino families. One consequence to mass U.S. incarceration: Leaving grandparents to spend their Golden Years raising their incarcerated adult children’s children.
ALEC, which specifically brings together GOP legislators and corporate CEOs, has also drafted model state legislation in areas such as anti-gun-control and related open-carry laws, of concern among some gerontologists. For instance, in those states, there’s alarm that some of the growing number of seniors with Alzheimer’s and related dementias may respond precipitously to the sight of such weapons and literally trigger tragedies.
Hiltzik wrote that AARP contended it had partnered with ALEC in order to engage with conservative state legislators and, as the organization said in a statement, “advance our members’ priorities from a position of strength at ALEC’s annual meeting.” Noted Hiltzik, “AARP in its statement defended its outreach to lawmakers across the political spectrum.” But, he commented, “After all, scores of major corporations with equivalent interests in interfacing with conservative state legislators have abandoned the organization because of its militant opposition to climate change legislation and other policies.”
*** “DIAGNOSIS UNPREPARED: Elderly Hospital Patients Arrive Sick, Often Leave Disabled,” by Anna Gorman, Kaiser Health News/New America Media (Aug 10). Seniors often leave hospitals more disabled than when they arrived. But the nation’s few special ACE units show they can promote health and independence. KHN has begun the senior reporter Gorman’s five-part weekly series about gaps in American hospital care for seniors. Some of the stories have run or will on a range of KHN partner media organizations, such as US News & World Report and USA Today. Gorman did the project as a Journalists in Aging Fellow, NAM’s program with the Gerontological Society on Aging, with her fellowship sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund.
*** “Short-Term Care Insurance Policies on the Rise in Niche Market,” by Barbara Marquand, NerdWallet/Christian Science Monitor (Aug. 6): “If you’re old enough to remember rotary-dial telephones and black-and-white television, then you’ve probably heard of long-term care insurance. But you may not have heard about short-term care insurance, which pays for the same types of services for a period of less than a year.”
She explains that the number of short-term policies sold in 2015 increased by almost 20% over the previous year. Meanwhile, sales of long-term care insurance have declined 20%. That’s because since 2000, claims rose more than insurers projected and they lost money. Also, low interest rates after the 2008 recession hurt insurers’ bottom lines on their invested premiums.
Marquand continues that although short-term care insurance is cheaper than plans for long-term care, the new policies provide coverage only from three months to 360 days. Consumer advocates are raising concerns “because state regulators don’t hold the product to the same standards as long-term care insurance.”
She writes, “’In most states they’re flying under the radar,’ says Bonnie Burns, training and policy specialist for California Health Advocates, a nonprofit for Medicare advocacy for Californians. “Some state [regulators] I talked to didn’t even know the policies were being sold in their states.” Burns, long a leading consumer advocate on long-term care coverage, said people need to plan for longer stays. Marquand notes, “The median stay in assisted living is 22 months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
*** “Book Up for a Longer Life: Readers Die Later, Study Finds,” by Alison Flood, The Guardian (Aug. 8): “The study, which is published in the September issue of the journal Social Science & Medicine, looked at the reading patterns of 3,635 people who were 50 or older. On average, book readers were found to live for almost two years longer than non-readers.”
*** “Why Trump and Clinton Need to Join the Conversation on Retirement Security,” by Dan Kadlec, Money (Aug. 9): Under the subhead, “Aging is the forgotten megatrend,” Kadlec writes, “This presidential election cycle, perhaps the closest watched in history, has lacked any meaningful discussion of the pressing issues related to longevity and retirement . . . . Almost half of Americans name the threat of terrorism as our biggest problem and nearly a quarter cite immigration, according to a Personal Capital survey. Imagine if the candidates harped on the savings and retirement crisis.”
He continues, “Even though 20% of Americans have no retirement savings, only 8% list retirement security as a top concern, the survey found. The Government Accountability Office has found that about half of all households near retirement age have zero retirement savings and no pension other than Social Security . . . . Some 68% of American workers complained last fall that presidential hopefuls were not talking enough about retirement issues, according to a poll from the Financial Services Roundtable. In a major speech on the economy this week, Republican nominee Trump didn’t utter a single word about retirement, longevity or aging. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming speech on the economy isn’t likely to raise the issue either.
Kadlek adds, “We also need to be discussing what it means to grow old in this age of longer lives, and recognize that many of today’s 65-year-olds still have a long runway. We can be engaged and productive longer, not a drain on the nation’s resources.”
*** “Closed Social Security offices, furloughed staff under GOP cuts, agency warns,” by Joe Davidson. Washington Post, Aug. 9: “Social Security is facing dark times — not just figuratively, but as in the lights would go out. That’s the warning from Social Security Administration (SSA) officials if an appropriations bill pushed by House Republicans takes effect.”
Davidson quotes an SSA document stating, “There would be up to two weeks of furloughs for all employees.” During that time, it says, “our offices would be closed to the public. Additionally, a full hiring freeze would cause service degradation and long wait times and delays.”
He reports, since 2010 the agency’s operating budget “has shrunk 10 percent after inflation while the number of beneficiaries rose by 12 percent. President Obama has proposed an $11.1 billion administrative budget for fiscal year 2017, $522 million more than this year. House Republicans have proposed $772 million less than the president’s budget, according to SSA figures, while Senate Republicans would reduce agency spending by $582 million. The administrative budget is separate from the trust fund that pays benefits to recipients.”
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