GBO NEWS: Puerto Rican Elders Still Struggle Post Hurricane; POLITICO and WaPo on Aging Agenda; 20 Nat’l Press Aging Fellows in DC; Trump Plan & Indian Health; How Elders Lose Rights; & More
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations — Our 24th Year.
October 12, 2017 — Volume 17, Number 11
EDITOR’S NOTE—WE’VE MOVED: With this issue, GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), emanates from a new e-mail address and phone contact. GBONews.org readers do not have to make any changes. The newsletter will continue publishing alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues from the same WordPress blog via our Constant Contact emails. However, to reach this editor from now on, send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. [paul.kleyman@earthlink.net]. 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.
Adding a personal note, although I’m no longer on staff at New America Media, I am grateful for their support since 2009, especially that of NAM Executive Director Sandy Close. As National Coordinator of JGN and editor of GBONews, I am also maintaining our collaboration with the Gerontological Society of America in cooperation with NAM on our Journalists in Aging Fellows program. GBONews will continue highlighting many of those fellowship stories.
In This Issue: No, Signore Columbo, we’re not Indians. But welcome! You’re just in time for indigenous People’s Day.
1. SPECIAL COVERAGE: Aging in the U.S. & Puerto Rico (Post Hurricane)
2. GOOD SOURCE ON BAD NEWS IN INDIAN COUNTRY: *** “Indian Healthcare—A System in Free-Fall,” Expert Dave Baldridge in ASA’s Aging Today.
3. EYES ON THE PRIZE: *** List of 20 Reporting Fellows on Aging Meeting, DC, for National Press Foundation Fellowship on Aging.
*** “How the Elderly Lose Their Rights,” by Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker (Oct. 9), on guardianship abuse;
*** “‘Ending Ageism’ Author [Margaret Morganroth Gullette]Tells Readers ‘How Not to Shoot Old People,’” by Paul Kleyman, New America Media;
*** Plus “Ageist Trolls on Social Media and in the New Yorker, Too” by Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Silver Century Foundation website;
*** “Gov. Brown Signs ‘Bill of Rights’ for LGBT Seniors in Long-Term Care,” New America Media;
*** “Ailing Seniors Are Fastest-Growing Group Using Medical Marijuana,” by Karen Michel, NPR Here & Now;
*** “Music Brings Healing, Comfort to the Dying,” by JoAnn Mar, KALW Public Radio;
*** “‘Aging in Place’ Takes Less Positive Meaning for Many Detroit Elders,” by Julia Kassem, Detroit Journalism Cooperative;
*** “Stanford ‘Letter Project’ Makes End-of-Life Wishes Clear in Many Languages,” by Beth Baker Next Avenue;
*** “Despite Boost In Social Security, Rising Medicare Part B Costs Leave Seniors In Bind,” by Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News, “Navigating Aging” column;
*** “On Anti-Aging, Allure Bests New Beauty” by Stuart Greenbaum, Humble Sky blog.
1. SPECIAL COVERAGE—AGING IN THE U.S., PUERTO RICO (POST-HURRICANE)
*** “Seniors in Puerto Rico Face Appalling Conditions After Hurricane Maria,” by Lisa Esposito, U.S. News & World Report (Oct. 11): States the drop head, “On the island of Vieques, residents struggle with shortages of food, medicine and basic services.” In the first of two articles on the continuing disaster facing Puerto Rican elders, Esposito profiled the struggles of Heida Stearns Rivera, 81, of Vieques, an island municipality off Puerto Rico’s eastern coast.
The unusual piece quotes a series of text messages from her son, Paul Stearns, who reached Esposito via text because cell service remains spotty at best. Stearns, whom some GBONews readers may recognize as a former communications director of the Gerontological Society of America, was visiting to attend a festival and ended up hunkering down at his mother’s home as Hurricane Maria’s power grew to category 5 and rammed the island.
In one text, Stearns reported that his mother’s home “received damage from two sliding doors that imploded during the storm. We had water entering the home and obviously broken glass. Mom was unhurt but terrified by the sound of crashing glass and the howling wind that was coming in during the height of the storm.”
In another message he commented, “I am appalled at the lack of government response from our U.S. government and Puerto Rico. The cleanup effort has been by the people of Vieques.” (The island was used by the U.S. Navy since World War II as a base for live training exercises, until, in the wake of protests, the test bombings ended with the base’s closing in 2003.)
Stearns noted in another text, “Sadly, I was told that the local senior center is a loss after Maria. Vieques is an island of approximately 9,000 residents. Thirty-five percent are 65-plus and I have heard we have a centenarian on the island.”
Elsewhere, he told Esposito, “Medications are hard to come by.” Stearns explained, “After the storm there were people who could not get medicine such as insulin and inhalers because they had no cash. The pharmacy refused and it took a local hotel to front the cash. We are an all-cash society now.”
Stressing that seniors are coping with unsanitary conditions, Stearns wrote, “If I was not here, it would be hard for my mother to manage, such as daily tasks of finding ice to keep food fresh since there is no electricity, managing a cistern to flush the toilet and keep dishes clean when there is currently no running water.”
Esposito, a patient-advice reporter at U.S. News, is a former oncology nurse and past research coordinator at the National Institutes of Health. She has been a Journalists in Aging Fellow in 2016 and 2017.
UPDATE: Esposito followed-up on Friday, Oct. 13, with “Electricity, Water and Shelter Issues Plague Older Adults in Puerto Rico.” She wrote, “The doctor’s office closed on Tuesday. The electricity went down around 11 a.m., making it impossible to see any more patients, says Dr. Helen Rosa, a geriatrician and family practitioner in Plaza Las Americas, a major shopping area in San Juan, Puerto Rico.” Patients were unable to get up to her sixth-floor office. “Without electricity, there’s no working air conditioning for patients in their 80s and 90s. Electronic health records fade in and out. When Rosa can’t prescribe electronically, patients who call her office – assuming phone service is available – can’t obtain refills for needed medications.” Meanwhile, said a team leader with Registered Nurses Response Network, part of National Nurses United, as of late last week, “FEMA has been kind of absent,” especially in the poorest inland communities.
*** POLITICO Devotes Special “The Agenda” Section to Aging: In the project overview, headlined, “Welcome to the Aging Issue,” POLITICO Editor Stephen Heuser explains that the package aims to address such looming questions as, “In an era of shrinking families, who’s going to take care of people as they become genuinely old and unable to care for themselves? Where will the growing population of seniors live; how will they get around?” The half-dozen stories include:
* “Senior Medicine: When ‘More’ Isn’t Better,” by Arthur Allen, editor of the POLITICO Pro e-health team, explores a movement to slow down excessive eldercare. Heuser comments that Allen found the effort to be “crashing directly into the culture of medicine that, for various reasons, likes to administer a lot of care.”
Allen’s story focuses on the guidelines of Choosing Wisely, “a 5-year-old medical initiative based on the premise that the best outcomes often result from saying ‘no’ to tempting procedures, tests and prescriptions.”
According to some estimates, Allen writes, “As much as a fifth of United States medical care is unnecessary. This represents $250 billion annually—and perhaps more important, it means patients are undergoing hundreds of thousands of procedures and prescriptions that have no benefit, and quite possibly cause them some harm.”
Choosing Wisely guidelines were developed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation “to bridge the divide between two driving philosophies in U.S. medicine—the idea of physician autonomy built upon an almost mystical ‘physician-patient dyad’ . . . and a century’s worth of momentum toward evidence-based improvement and standardization of medicine.”
Allen explains among the limited number of health systems and hospitals that have adopted the approach, some have claimed success. “Doctors at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire reduced unnecessary preoperative tests from 23 percent to 4 percent over a three-month period by incorporating Choosing Wisely guidelines into the electronic records their doctors use, according to a recent study.” Yet, Allen also documents skeptic about the voluntary program, as well as institutional barriers to its wider adoption.
Although POLITICO’S overall project was funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation, Allen developed his story with support from a Journalists in Aging Fellowship from New America Media and the Gerontological Society of America with sponsorship from the Silver Century Foundation, [www.silvercentury.org] also in cooperation with GBONews publisher, the Journalists Network on Generations.
*Another of the POLITICO section’s articles is “Aging: 5 Icebergs Washington Is Ignoring,” by Danny Vinik: With the cover line, “National policy is way behind on dealing with an immense demographic shift,” the piece highlights these pressure points:
1. A worker shortage — One solution: “Allow more immigration,” although that’s politically more difficult now);
2. What long-term care system? — “The federal government has failed to build a long-term care system capable of meeting seniors’ needs”;
3. The coming pension crisis — “Millions of people aren’t financially prepared for retirement . . . 84 percent of seniors receive Social Security benefits—but less than half have another source of retirement benefits”;
4. Skyrocketing health spending — Spending on the major health care programs and Social Security “is projected to rise from 11 percent of gross domestic product this year to 16.9 percent of GDP in 2047,” according to the Congressional Budget Office;
5. Age discrimination — “Despite efforts to reduce it, age discrimination remains a major factor for older Americans, especially in the labor market.”
* “America’s Government is Getting Old,” also by Vinik, states, “In principle, there’s nothing wrong with older workers: They have more experience than younger ones and employers often report that they are more attentive at work. Age discrimination is not just illegal, but strips companies of experience and judgment.”
*“Hospice in crisis” by POLITICO Executive Health Editor Joanne Kenen, says, “The most important end-of-life movement in a generation struggles in an era of changing families and prolonged deaths.”
*“Uber, But for Grandma,” by Tanya Snyder, examines the special Uber and Lyft rideshare startups that “tackle the senior-transport crisis, and test problem-solving the limits of tech.”
*“The Fight Against Senior Scams” by Victoria Guida and Patrick Temple-West delves into financial abuse, “now officially a U.S. public-health concern.” The piece looks inside the movement to get it under control—and scrutinizes what’s slowing it down.
*** “The New Reality of Old Age in America,” by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post (Sept. 30): “’I’m going to work until I die, if I can, because I need the money,’ said Richard Dever, 74, who drove 1,400 miles to this Maine campground from his home in Indiana to take a temporary job that pays $10 an hour.” The writers depict him as presenting “a snapshot of the new reality of old age in America . . . People are living longer, more expensive lives, often without much of a safety net. As a result, record numbers of Americans older than 65 are working — now nearly 1 in 5. That proportion has risen steadily over the past decade, and at a far faster rate than any other age group. Today, 9 million senior citizens work, compared with 4 million in 2000.”
They continue, “While some work by choice rather than need, millions of others are entering their golden years with alarmingly fragile finances. Fundamental changes in the U.S. retirement system have shifted responsibility for saving from the employer to the worker, exacerbating the nation’s rich-poor divide. Two recent recessions devastated personal savings. And at a time when 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 every day, Social Security benefits have lost about a third of their purchasing power since 2000.”
The articles goes on, “Even people who manage to save for retirement often face a grim calculation: Among people between 55 and 64 who have retirement accounts, the median value of those accounts is just over $120,000, according to the Federal Reserve. So people are forced to guess how long they might live and budget their money accordingly, knowing that one big health problem, or a year in a nursing home, could wipe it all out.”
The story goes on, “The system has been a gold mine for Wall Street. Brokerages and insurance companies that manage retirement accounts earned roughly $33 billion in fees last year, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College .… Compared with the old system of company pensions, the new retirement system does not serve the average American well, said Teresa Ghilarducci, the labor economist, who teaches at the New School in New York.”
2. GOOD SOURCE ON BAD NEWS IN INDIAN COUNTRY
*** “Indian Healthcare—A System in Free-Fall,” by Dave Baldridge, Aging Today (September/October 2017): For this week featuring Indigenous People’s Day, Baldridge, director of the International Association for Indigenous Aging, in Albuquerque, N.M., writes in the American Society on Aging’s newspaper, “Indian healthcare is in trouble.”
More than a million of today’s 5.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) are covered through Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program, now past its reauthorization date unless Congress acts to renew it). Add to that number many more who are eligible for coverage in states that adopted the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.
Baldridge, former executive director of the National Indian Council on Aging, writes, “Indian healthcare budgets have suffered disproportionate funding shortfalls for decades, and are currently in danger of even more draconian cuts, personified by the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017. Although Sen. Tom Udall’s (D-NM) Senate Appropriations subcommittee secured a crucial 5 percent funding increase for fiscal year 2017, the Administration’s draft budget calls for $300.5 million in cuts to the [Indian Health Service (IHS)].” National Congress of American Indians 2016 Fiscal Budget Request, he notes, states that the proposed reductions are “a ‘complete departure’ from the progress made (under the Affordable Care Act) to rebuild the IHS budget,”
A member of the Cherokee Nation, Baldridge cites figures from the National Academy of Social Insurance showing that the number of AIANs ages 65 and older will triple by 2050 and the number of those 85 and older will increase by eight times, from 42,000 to 300,000.
Baldridge emphasizes, “Clearly, AIAN elders will be among the first affected and least able to recover from cuts to Medicaid and Social Security. Their loss of federal health coverage cannot be replaced by the purchase of private insurance.”
Baldridge continues, “Annual median income for AIANs is $44,347, compared to $68,390 for other Americans. This and other social determinants of health contribute significantly to AIAN’s poor health status. In future years, the per capita wealth of Native elders will be about half that of the remainder of the older adult population. Social Security is often the only safety net between them and economic disaster. Forty-nine percent of elderly AIANs rely on it for 90 percent or more of their income, according to IHS.”
He concludes, “Indian country’s responses to health disparities often reveal a longer view of the social contract— perhaps best expressed in the Seventh Generation credo of the Iroquois Confederacy—a centuries-old coalition of northeastern tribes. It says that each of us should consider every action we take in terms of its effects upon on our unborn children seven generations from now. It emphasizes respecting and preserving the safety and well-being of elders.”
Reporters can reach Baldridge at dave@iasquared.org, 505-239-4793.
3. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** 20 Reporting Fellows on Aging Will Meet in Washington, D.C., this coming weekend (Oct. 15-18), to attend the all-expenses-paid National Press Foundation (NPF) Fellowship training seminar on aging.
Congratulations to one and all. This year’s NPF fellows on aging are: Leslie Barker, Dallas Morning News; Michael Casey, Associated Press; Lois Collins, Deseret News (Salt Lake City); Liz Freeman, Naples (Fla.) Daily News; Constance Gustke, Freelance (CNBC.com, Healthline.com, New York Times); Mary Kane, Kiplinger’s Retirement Report; Reshma Kapadia, Barron’s; Jon Kelvey, Carroll County (Md.) Times; Alessandra Malito, MarketWatch; Doug Moore, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Steven Petrow, Freelance (New York Times, Washington Post); Jessica Ravitz, CNN; Katy Read, Minneapolis Star Tribune; Ana Rodriguez, Univision; Tracy Rucinski, Reuters; Stephanie Sanchez, KAWC Colorado River Public Media; Michele Shapiro, AARP; Andrew Soergel, U.S. News & World Report; Taylor Tepper, Bankrate; Russ Wiles, Arizona Republic.
Sponsored by AARP for the first time, the program will cover financial literacy and security; fraud and scams; health care and healthy living; public policy; generational impacts; living beyond 100 and more.
4. THE STORYBOARD
*** “How the Elderly Lose Their Rights,” by Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker (Oct. 9): States the drop head, “Guardians can sell the assets and control the lives of senior citizens without their consent—and reap a profit from it.” Aviv tells of Rudy and Rennie North, an elderly Las Vegas couple, who found themselves suddenly forced to move from their Sun City retirement home into an assisted living facility by a local family court. They were given no hearing, as too often still happens around the nation, and were placed in the dubious care of a court-appointed guardian.
Their mental capacity? “Rudy and Rennie had not undergone any cognitive assessments. They had never received a diagnosis of dementia. In addition to [reading the works of] Freud, Rudy was working his way through Nietzsche and Plato. Rennie read romance novels,” writes Aviv.
“In the United States,” Aviv continues, “a million and a half adults are under the care of guardians, either family members or professionals, who control some $273 billion dollars in assets, according to an auditor for the guardianship fraud program in Palm Beach County. Little is known about the outcome of these arrangements, because states do not keep complete figures on guardianship cases—statutes vary widely—and, in most jurisdictions, the court records are sealed.”
The article goes on, “A Government Accountability report from 2010 said, ‘We could not locate a single website, federal agency, state or local entity, or any other organization that compiles comprehensive information on this issue.’ A study published this year by the American Bar Association found that ‘an unknown number of adults languish under guardianship’ when they no longer need it, or never did. The authors wrote that ‘guardianship is generally permanent, leaving no way out—until death do us part.’ ”
Aviv says Pamela Teaster, who directs the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech, “told me that, though most guardians assume their duties for good reasons, the guardianship system is ‘a morass, a total mess.’ She said, ‘It is unconscionable that we don’t have any data, when you think about the vast power given to a guardian. It is one of society’s most drastic interventions.’”
*** “ ‘Ending Ageism’ Author Tells Readers ‘How Not to Shoot Old People,’” by Paul Kleyman, New America Media, (Oct.6): Margaret Morganroth Gullette, author of the new book, Ending Ageism: How Not to Shoot Old People, wants us to be more aware of how age bias doubles down on prejudice for us all.
And this just in by Gullette: *** “Ageist Trolls on Social Media and in the New Yorker, Too” provides more, directly from the anti-ageists author’s keyboard. See Gullette’s blog, on the Silver Century Foundation website.
*** “Gov. Brown Signs ‘Bill of Rights’ for LGBT Seniors in Long-Term Care,” New America Media (Oct. 4). California Senate Bill 219 strengthens protections for LGBT seniors living in long-term care facilities.
*** “Ailing Seniors Are Fastest-Growing Group Using Medical Marijuana,” by Karen Michel, NPR Here & Now/New America Media (Sept. 30): With 29 states allowing medical marijuana, seniors have been increasingly seeking its curative powers. But they face many obstacles.
*** “Music Brings Healing, Comfort to the Dying,” by JoAnn Mar, KALW Public Radio/New America Media (Sept. 25). There’s an increased use of live music at major hospitals and hospices to bring healing and comfort to people who are near death.
*** “‘Aging in Place’ Takes Less Positive Meaning for Many Detroit Elders,” by Julia Kassem, Detroit Journalism Cooperative/New America Media (Sep 17): “Aging in place,” at home, instead of a nursing home, is what most want. But for too many Detroit elders, accessible choices are far and few between.
*** “Stanford ‘Letter Project’ Makes End-of-Life Wishes Clear in Many Languages,” by Beth Baker Next Avenue/New America Media (Sept. 12): Stanford University created an informal, but legally binding letter elders can write stating their end-of-life wishes to family members and doctors in any of eight languages.
*** “Despite Boost In Social Security, Rising Medicare Part B Costs Leave Seniors In Bind,” by Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News, “Navigating Aging” column (Oct. 5): “Millions of seniors will soon be notified that Medicare premiums for physicians’ services are rising and likely to consume most of the cost-of-living adjustment they’ll receive next year from Social Security. Higher 2018 premiums for Medicare Part B will hit older adults who’ve been shielded from significant cost increases for several years, including large numbers of low-income individuals who struggle to make ends meet.”
*** “On Anti-Aging, Allure Bests New Beauty” by Stuart Greenbaum, Humble Sky blog (Sept. 19): “Credit to Allure for literally taking a stand against ageism,” writes Greenbaum. His blog shows and image of two striking magazine covers side-by-side on a newsstand. On the cover of New Beauty, a gorgeous brunette is shown next to the copy, “Stop Aging?” and “The Secrets to Looking Younger.” On the right is a vision in white, hair and all. The cover legend: “The End of Anti-aging.”
Greenbaum comments, “Allure has taken a remarkably fashionable stance on behalf of women. The magazine announced in its September 2017 edition that it seeks the ‘end of anti-aging’ with ‘our call to the industry . . . . We are making a resolution to stop using the term ‘anti-aging,’” states Allure editor in chief Michelle Lee, in that edition’s Letter From the Editor.
Greenbaum’s blog continues, “Lee challenges the beauty industry to stop ‘subtly reinforcing the message that aging is a condition we need to battle …’ Though she admits, ‘We know it’s not easy to change packaging and marketing overnight.’”
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. Copyright 2017, JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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