GBO NEWS: Medicare, Medicaid & Trump; U.S. Longevity Drops; Old, Black and “Invisible in New York” Series; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations
December 28, 2016 — Volume 16, Number 18
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: Out with the Oy! And In with the Vey!
1. ELDERCARE REFORM SCHOOL: *** “Medicare: What Obamacare Repeal Would Bring, Report by Kaiser Family Foundation”; *** “The Quiet War on Medicaid” by former Democratic presidential advisor and past director of the National Economic Council, Gene B. Sperling; *** “Mortality in the United States, 2015”—With Drop in Longevity, National Center for Health Statistics.
2. GEN BEATLES NEWS: ***Matt Perry’s New “Aging With Dignity” newsletter, California Health Report; ***Jay Newton-Small Profiled in Washington Post on Leaving Journalism to Co-found Memory Well; ***Colin Milner’s 15th Anniversary of the International Council on Active Aging and its Journal of Active Aging.
3. GOOD SOURCES: *** “After Obamacare: The Future of U.S. Health Care,” free webinar by USC’s Center for Health Journalism, Jan. 24; *** “Dignity For All: Ensuring Economic Security as America Ages,” Justice in Aging Conference, Posts Session Videos on—What Now?
4. THE STORYBOARD: *** Gregg Morris’ Five-Part “INVISIBLE IN NEW YORK” Series now appearing weekly in the Amsterdam News (historic African American news outlet); *** “A Poor Christmas for Latino Elders on LA Streets,” La Opinión, by Francisco Castro, (In Spanish: “Una pobre Navidad para los más olvidados de ‘La La Land,’”); *** “The Challenges of Safely Aging in Place in Rural America,” U.S. News & World Report, by Michael O. Schroeder; *** “Childhood Trauma Effects Often Persist Into 50s and Beyond,” PBS Next Avenue, by Emily Gurnon; *** “Blues Icon Highlights Meeting’s New Lens on Black Aging Research,” Florida Courier, by Penny Dickerson; *** “Aging Boomers to Depend on a Little Help From Their Friends, Extended Kin,” Deseret News, by Lois Collins, *** “Aging in Trump’s America is Something to Fear, Health-Care Experts Warn,” Ottawa Citizen. by Elizabeth Payne.
1. ELDERCARE REFORM SCHOOL
Medicare: What Obamacare Repeal Would Bring: “What Are the Implications of Repealing the Affordable Care Act for Medicare Spending and Beneficiaries?” is a new guide from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reporters may find useful in shaping questions about what the newly empowered GOP might actually dismantle (or preserve) in the coming season of lawmaking (or unmaking).
The KFF issue brief explains that as Republican policymakers consider how to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a full reversal “would undo all of the law’s changes to Medicare and would increase Medicare spending, primarily by restoring higher payments to health care providers and Medicare Advantage plans.”
Is your favorite Aunt Amy ready to see the Part D prescription drug “doughnut hole” reopened to 2004 levels after being largely closed under ACA? You know, the aunt who has congestive heart failure or a rare cancer requiring costly designer drugs–and who voted for a YUGE change. Is Uncle Walt going to have to reconsider buying that new AR15 for his gun collection because ACA might no long pay for his colonoscopy next year, along with other preventive health measures? KFF doesn’t speculate on who in the family will end up paying the price of repeal, but they aren’t getting any richer or younger.
Says the KFF brief, “The increase in Medicare spending would likely lead to higher Medicare premiums, deductibles, and cost sharing for beneficiaries, and accelerate the insolvency of the Medicare Part A trust fund.” (That’s the Hospital Insurance part of Medicare.) The summary goes on, “Full repeal of the Medicare provisions in the ACA would increase Medicare spending by $802 billion from 2016 to 2025, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”
Although it would increase Medicare deductibles and copayments, some seniors may also see benefits to repeal. For instance, says the KFF report, repeal would “reduce Part A payroll taxes for Medicare beneficiaries (and other taxpayers) with earnings greater than $200,000/individual or $250,000/couple.”
In addition, Part D prescription drug beneficiaries could see their premiums reduced on average. But that’s only because reinstating the original doughnut-hole gap will cut Medicare’s prescription drug bill, while also forcing many very sick seniors to pay thousands more.
Also, those in the Medicare Advantage managed care programs, such as Kaiser Permanente (not directly related to the Kaiser Family Foundation) would be free to add extra benefits they offered before ACA. That’s because currently, ACA is in the process of cutting payment to Advantage programs, which had been receiving an average of 14 percent more per enrolled patient than standard Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) plans were getting. Reporters who have followed this issue know that when HMOs balked at signing up Medicare patients years ago, Congress decided to pay them above the average cost per patient on the theory: If you pay plans, they will come.
The managed care organizations used some of the extra tax dollars to entice Medicare enrollees with extras not covered by Medicare, such as eyeglasses, dental care or health and fitness classes. But analyses by the independent research firm, Mathematica, and others showed that some of those HMOs tended to skim younger, healthier beneficiaries—pushing the older, higher-cost elders into Medicare’s FFS programs.
The KFF brief on Medicare is a six-page, annotated outline with helpful links, including to many original sources in the “Endnotes.”
*** “The Quiet War on Medicaid” is a must-reading op-ed by former Democratic presidential advisor and past director f the National Economic Council, Gene B. Sperling. He writes in the New York Times (Dec. 27), “If Mr. Trump chooses to oppose his party’s Medicare proposals while pushing unprecedented cuts to older people and working families in other vital safety-net programs, it would play into what seems to be an emerging strategy of his: to publicly fight a few select or symbolic populist battles in order to mask an overall economic and fiscal strategy that showers benefits on the most well-off at the expense of tens of millions of Americans.” Agree or not, reporters on aging need to be keeping a close eye on Medicaid, and Sperling’s commentary points to important questions journalists need to ask.
*** “Mortality in the United States, 2015” is the kind of apparently bland government report that occasionally–as in this case—can widen the eyes. Issued this month by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Division of Vital Statistics, the analysis states, “Life expectancy for the U.S. population in 2015 was 78.8 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2014.” Huh! Longevity here has decreased?
As the New York Times head put it (Dec. 8), “Life Expectancy in U.S. Declines Slightly, and Researchers Are Puzzled.” NYT reporter Katie Rogers, continued, “American life expectancy is in decline for the first time since 1993, when H.I.V.-related deaths were at their peak. But this time, researchers can’t identify a single problem driving the drop and are instead pointing to a number of factors, from heart disease to suicides, that have caused a greater number of deaths.”
The NCHS researchers found, “Life expectancy at birth decreased 0.1 year from 78.9 years in 2014 to 78.8 in 2015, largely because of increases in mortality from heart disease, chronic lower respiratory diseases, unintentional injuries, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and suicide.”
Rogers’ NYT story quotes Columbia University health policy professor Peter Muennig, PhD, not part of the study, that the decline was a “’uniquely American phenomenon’ in comparison with other developed countries, like Japan or Sweden.” He went on, “A 0.1 decrease is huge. Life expectancy increases, and that’s very consistent and predictable, so to see it decrease, that’s very alarming.”
Muennig told her that popular theories about the decline, such rising obesity rates and an opiod epidemic aren’t supported by the data. “This report slams it home that this is really a mystery,” he emphasized.
The data brief states, “In 2015, a total of 2,712,630 resident deaths were registered in the United States—86,212 more deaths than in 2014. From 2014 to 2015, the age-adjusted death rate for the total population increased 1.2%, and life expectancy at birth decreased 0.1 year. The age-adjusted death rate increased for non-Hispanic white males, non-Hispanic white females, and non-Hispanic black males. The [mortality] rate for the total population rose significantly for the first time since 1999.”
Life expectancy for males slipped from 76.5 years in 2014 to 76.3 years in 2015, and for females it dipped 0.1 year from 81.3 years in 2014 to 81.2 years in 2015.
But after age 65, there was no change in life expectancy between 2014 and 2015. Overall, those who reach 65 can expect to live another 19.4 years on average (20.6 years for females and 18.0 years for males, a gap of 2.6 years).
The study showed racial declines in health with death rates rising for non-Hispanic black males by 0.9 percent and 1.0 percent among non-Hispanic white males. Rates for non-Hispanic white females rose 1.6 percent. But rates for black women, Latino men and Hispanic women were unchanged.
Muennig also pointed to declining health among working class whites as a major contributor to the study’s results. Life expectancy for whites has stagnated or dipped in recent years, fueled by vulnerability to drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and economic distress.
Rogers quoted Muennig, “It’s not happening to black people. That group used to have a huge and growing disparity with whites, but that gap has radically narrowed.” In 2014, the life expectancy gap between black and white people closed to 3.4 years, “the smallest on record,” she reported. And not, Muenning might have added, for good reasons.
2. GEN BEATLES NEWS
***Matt Perry’s New Aging With Dignity newsletter for the California Health Report (CHR) will deploy in early January. The launch, he reports, “will mark the four-year anniversary of my aging coverage for CHR.” After doing some initial stories on aging starting in 2011, Perry went full time on the generations beat in January 2013, with support from the SCAN Foundation. The beat’s current funder, the Archstone Foundation, “wanted to see more coverage of aging issues. So besides my twice-monthly column on aging, which covers programs like art, exercise, brain health, spiritual issues, end-of-life care, and everything in-between–we are adding video coverage, editorials by state aging experts, and engagement via social media, such as Facebook Live.”
One of his initial videos is on “the groundbreaking research on homelessness in Oakland by Margot Kushel” of the University of California, San Francisco. For this “immersive journalism” video story, Perry e-mailed, “I will spend anywhere from a few days to a week homeless in Oakland while talking to the older adults on the street. The video will complement a written account of Kushel’s continuing research.”
Those interested in subscribing can do so for free at http://tinyurl.com/jcszs9l.
***Colin Milner Celebrated the 15th Anniversary since he founded the International Council on Active Aging and its Journal of Active Aging. Although ICAA is a trade group, Milner, a former journalist, has been instrumental in challenging the neglect and ageism long imbedded in the fitness field. In fact he’s served as an adviser to the World Economic forum, has been on the advisory board for the National Institute on Aging Exercise & Physical Activity guideline books among other assignments.
In the Journal’s September-October issue, Milner reviewed the active aging field’s progress (and lack thereof) in the past 15 years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he notes that government remains “behind the curve” in the United States: “for example funding for senior centers has been flat for many years. Logically, that funding should increase because of the number of people getting older, but it hasn’t. We also lack national policies around physical activity and aging,” an international failure, he says.
He continues, “While things are better than thy were, older populations are still invisible in many areas. We keep talking about the need to invest in our youth, because they’re the future. But so is the older population.” Although the senior living field has become more receptive to the fitness needs of older adults, he says, little has changed in fitness clubs that “are still very youth centric in their marketing and sales approaches.”
Businesses that neglect aging boomer markets today are failing to recognize that “one out of every two dollars spent in the U.S. is in the hands of people over 50, as are seven out of 10 disposable dollars,” according to Nielsen Insights.
Milner added, “When I speak to people about why they haven’t looked at the older population, I hear that the business of aging isn’t sexy. The reality is, and the research supports it, people just haven’t taken the time to consider the market and how to be successful with it.” What’s more, he says, “Globally, 90 percent of all marketing dollars are spent on individuals below age 50, according to AdMap magazine.” That focus he lamentsm,” sends a message to people over that age that you’re invisible.”
***Jay Newton-Small, whose career move from political journalism at Time Magazine to becoming a dementia-care enterprise and was featured in GBONews recently was the subject of a Washington Post profile, Dec. 15. The story, by Tara Bahrampour, is headlined, “This Former Journalist Helps Caregivers Get to Know Who Their Patients Once Were, Before Dementia Took Hold.”
Explaining that Newton-Small started her new venture after her father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, Bahrampour, wrote, “Working with two partners and hiring freelance journalists to conduct interviews and gather photos and other media, her organization, MemoryWell, has provided profiles of a dozen people at three facilities, and is piloting with five more organizations.”
The story adds, “Research shows that quality of care increases and aggressive behavior decreases for long-term care patients whose caregivers are familiar with their life histories. But even well-trained caregivers can have a hard time breaking through to people whose memories are shrouded by dementia, Newton-Small said. ‘They don’t have any context to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing…It’s really isolating.’ The problem is exacerbated by the fact that facilities often have high staff turnover rates, making it less likely that caregivers will have time to learn about each resident’s personal details.”
Bahrampour also reports in the article that in February, “Newton-Small will start a six-month live-in residency at Halcyon House in Georgetown, which helps startups develop business strategy. She does not know what the facilities and families plan to do with the profiles in perpetuity, but hopes that even after residents die, the stories can somehow exist as memorials.”
Newton-Small is the author of the 2016 bestseller, Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works. Although she left her staff position at Time, she continues to blog for them and also appear as on the pundit panel on Hardball with Chris Matthews.
3. GOOD SOURCES
*** “After Obamacare: The Future of U.S. Health Care” will be a free webinar presented by the Center for Health Journalism on Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. The session will explore “how this political shift might change U.S. health care coverage, and what questions journalists should be asking as these dramatic changes unfold.” Panelists will include MIT’s Jonathan Gruber, an architect of the Affordable Care Act; the Hoover Institution’s Lanhee Chen, a leading conservative commentator and policy adviser; and Jennifer Haberkorn, senior health care reporter for Politico.
*** Videos and Slides Are Now Available from the Conference, “Dignity For All: Ensuring Economic Security as America Ages,” held post-election by Justice in Aging (formerly National Senior Citizens Law Center) in Washington, D.C., Nov. 15. The sessions, with leading policy experts on serving low-income elders, include presentations on what the research is showing and approaches to improving seniors’ health, economic security and vital services. The website does include presenter slides for scanning key points and themes. Panels also highlighted some local model efforts around the country. The day’s program served up a good roster of leading authorities reporters may wish to contact for interviews when covering poverty and aging.
4. THE STORYBOARD
Got clips? GBONews invites readers to drop us a link (with headline and a brief précis of what your piece is all about. We’ll be happy to consider sharing it with other gen-beat reporters in “The Storyboard” department. Here a few wrapping up 2016, a year that got peculiar and peculiarer by the news cycle—even as nobody got any younger.
As we’ve often reported, the Journalists Network on Generations (publisher of GBONews) has collaborated on the Journalists in Aging Fellows program with New America Media and the Gerontological Society of America for the past seven years. To date, 118 reporters in both mainstream and ethnic media have been selected for fellowships, yielding over 430 stories on just about every aspect of aging. Following are some recent stories by Fellows current and past.
*** Gregg Morris’ Five-Part “INVISIBLE IN NEW YORK” Series is now appearing weekly in the Amsterdam News (New York’s historic African American news outlet): Part 1 — “Housing for the Ages–The quest to Build Coretta Scott-King Senior Apartments,” Amsterdam News/New America Media (Dec 20). Link: http://tinyurl.com/hk2nsuf. It took Dedra Wade a decade–and the Lotto–to get the Coretta Scott-King Senior Apartments built for lower-income elders in Brooklyn’s East New York. Part 2 — “One Social Worker’s View of Aging Black on Life’s Margins,” Amsterdam News/New America Media , (Dec 26). Link: http://tinyurl.com/zjz8e3n.
*** “A Poor Christmas for Latino Elders on LA Streets,” La Opinión/New America Media , by Francisco Castro, (Dec 23). Link: http://tinyurl.com/jb5swog. In Spanish: “Una pobre Navidad para los más olvidados de ‘La La Land,’” La Opinión/New America Media . Link: http://tinyurl.com/glr8vu2.
*** “The Challenges of Safely Aging in Place in Rural America,” U.S. News & World Report/New America Media , by Michael O. Schroeder, (Dec 14). Link: http://tinyurl.com/hjm5fwp. People aging in–even retiring to–rural areas like Oregon face health challenges and isolation associated with growing old in sparsely populated places.
*** “Childhood Trauma Effects Often Persist Into 50s and Beyond,” PBS Next Avenue/New America Media , by Emily Gurnon, (Dec. 9) Link: http://tinyurl.com/zjanvw2. Childhood abuse raises the risk of serious mental and physical problems later even well into victims’ senior years.
*** “Blues Icon Highlights Meeting’s “New Lens” on Black Aging Research,” Florida Courier/New America Media , by Penny Dickerson, Posted: Dec 06, 2016. Link: http://tinyurl.com/jbmanzx. Scholars highlighted issues for black elders–including a focus on older blues musicians like icon Little Freddie King–at a national gerontology conference.
*** “Aging Boomers to Depend on a Little Help From Their Friends, Extended Kin,” Deseret News/New America Media, by Lois Collins, (Dec. 1). Link: http://tinyurl.com/jhawe65. Family forms an “invisible” eldercare workforce, but changes like more senior divorce and smaller families mean a bigger role for friends and extended kin.
*** “Aging in Trump’s America is Something to Fear, Health-Care Experts Warn,” Ottawa Citizen/New America Media, by Elizabeth Payne, (Nov 28). Link: http://tinyurl.com/jgotefz. Being old in America could get a lot more difficult under a Donald Trump presidency, experts warned at major conference on aging.
And now a word of thanks to our sponsors: the Silver Century Foundation, [http://www.silvercentury.org/] AARP, [www.aarp.org], the Commonwealth Fund (www.cmwf.org), the Retirement Research Foundation, [http://www.rrf.org/] and the John A. Hartford Foundation. [http://www.jhartfound.org/blog/]
If you have technical problems receiving issues of GBO News or if you’d like to be removed from the list, simply auto-reply to this e-mail of GBO News, or phone me at 415-503-4170 ext. 133 (e-mail: pkleyman@newamericamedia.org). GBO News especially thanks Sandy Close of New America Media, and our cyber-guru, Kevin Chan.
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online with in-kind support from New America Media (NAM). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. NAM is an online, nonprofit news service reaching 3,000 ethnic media outlets in the United States. GBO News readers are invited to visit the NAM website, and click on the Ethnic Elders section logo on the right side. Opinions expressed in GBO do not represent those of NAM. Copyright 2016, JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
To subscribe of unsubscribe, or if you have technical problems receiving issues of GBO or if you’d like to be removed from the list, e-mail me at pkleyman@newamericamedia.org or phone me at 415-503-4170 ext. 133.