GBO NEWS: CBS 60 Minutes’ Alzheimer’s Failure; Hey, GOP—Pres. Reagan on Social Security & Deficit; Older White Voters’ Turn from Trump; KALW’s Hour Radio Docu on Palliative Care; “Devastating” Care Cost for Vietnamese Family; IBM’s Ageism; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations— Our 25thYear.
April 26, 2018 — Volume 18, Number 5
EDITOR’S NOTE:GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), 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 GBONews Editor Paul Kleyman. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, you’ll receive the table of contents in an e-mail, so just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities.
In This Issue: News Deeply Vetted (But Not by the White House).
1. CBS 60 MINUTES’ FAILS ON ALZHEIMER’S
*** “Take It from Our Family, Long-Term Care Takes a Devastating Toll on Finances and Emotional Health,” by Andrew Lam;
*** “Cutting ‘Old Heads’ at IBM,”by Peter Gosselin and Ariana Tobin, ProPublicawithMother Jones;
*** “The Truth About Older Consumers’ Diversity,”by Rachel Dornhelm, Stria News;
*** “The Cheater’s Guide to BeatingAlzheimer’s: New Research and Prevention Breakthroughs,”by Paula Spencer Scott, Paradecover story;
*** “Medicare Doesn’t Equal Dental Care. [https://tinyurl.com/y9hx64g3] That CanBe a Big Problem,”by Austin Frakt, New York Times;
*** “Palliative Care: The Search for Comfort and Healing in The Face of Death,”hourlong documentary by JoAnn Mar, KALW Public Radio/End of Life Radio;
*** “Medicare Advantage Plans Cleared to Go Beyond Medical Coverage— Even Groceries,”bySusan Jaffe, Kaiser Health News;
*** “Heart Disease Still Deadly for African American Women,” by D. Kevin McNeir, Washington Informer;
*** “Chinese Seniors in New York: Where to Live,”by Zhihong Li, Sing Tao Daily (in Chinese), Diverse Elders Coalition in English.
*** “Conservatives, Business Leaders Worried About Deficit Take Aim at Social Security, Medicare,”by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times;
*** President Reagan video:Social Security does not add to the deficit;
*** “Exclusive: As Elections Near–many older, educated, white voters shift away from Trump’s party,” Reuters.
1. CBS 60 MINUTES’ FAILS ON ALZHEIMER’S
“Following a Couple from Diagnosis to the Final Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease,” with Dr. Jon LaPook, CBS 60 Minutes, (April 22): Produced by Robert G. Anderson, Deborah Rubin, Aaron Weisz, Amy Birnbaumand Kevin Finnegan: This segment—remarkable for what it shows and dismaying for what it fails to reveal–features the programs 10th and apparently final annual visit to a woman diagnosed in 2008 with Alzheimer’s disease.
CBS 60 Minutes returned to Carol Daly and her husband Mike, a retired New York police officer, each year for the last decade to show the debilitating impact of her advancing dementia over time. Such a media project could do so much good in revealing the struggle of 5 million Americans today — and the millions more who will experience brain diseases in the coming years, especially with the rapid aging of the huge boomer generation.So what’s not to like?
Unfortunately, the program and its correspondent, Jon LaPook, MD, stopped short of providing viewers wider context for this one family’s sad circumstances. LaPook mentions only in passing that the Dalys’ retirement finances were being drained, first by $40,000 a year in home care, and then by Carol’s nursing home care. As most GBONews readers know, skilled nursing care for dementia patients now averages well over $100,000 a year in the United States. Nowhere in the script was there any discussion of that fact the U.S. is one of the few advanced economies in the world that does not include some form of long-term care help within its health care system for families like the Dalys.
To be clear, this editor is not suggesting that 60 Minutes should have completely refocused the Dalys personal story on the public-policy issues. But the program’s omission of any reference to the roots of this slowly widening health care crisis was not a reasonable editorial decision. Large percentages of the rapidly aging U.S. population, with the youngest members of the huge boomer generation turning 54 this year—and growing numbers of their generation finding themselves caring for parents in their 80s, 90s or 100s—remain underinformed on this issue.
So many could benefit from strong explanatory journalism leavened by moving personal stories framed with exposure of the pervasive negligence by policymakers in the face of decades of analysis and warnings by experts in aging and disability. The producers could well have provided a web background segment on 60 Minutes “Overtime,” in addition to the ones for April 22 on Cambridge Analytica and MIT’s fantastic technology enabling people to “order pizza with your mind.”
What’s worse is that the program’s avoidance of the public issues leaves the Dalys and the mass audience of 60 Minuteswith the implication that the only solution lies in a family’s planning earlier. LaPook says at the program’s very end (see the show’s transcript) [https://tinyurl.com/ybrjuas6]is that the Dalys should have discussed what to do “when Carol was still Carol,” that is, before dementia stole her mind.
Mike, who admits to having had suicidal thoughts as Carol deteriorated beyond his ability to provide her care, bravely hopes that sharing such intimate details of their lives “will help others be better prepared.” Was it the job of 60 Minutesto effectively leave Mike Daly under a cloud of his nationally-exposed sense of guilt with some inkling that he might have done more? LaPook’s reassurances to him in the program sound hollow without at least some background and information that his family’s situation stems in large part from public policy decisions, not merely a family’s own shortsightedness.
How could Mike, a former police officer, presumably with a good pension and benefits, have prepared better with no long-term care system in place for them to do so? 60 Minutesfailed monumentally after 10 full years to provide even a suggestion of where the problem lies, much less that there are model solutions in many other countries from France to Japan. Furthermore, a veritable library of expert proposals in the United States would 1.) cover the public cost after initial investments in long-term services and supports, and 2.) eventually save piles of tax cash by eliminating waste and inefficiencies while also maximizing a family’s ability to cope and manage, allowing them to remain productive in the country’s economy.
With a long-estimated 75 percent of continuing care directly paid for by families, the U.S. system continues to offer only Medicaid, a poverty program, once an elder or person with disabilities “spends down” below the poverty level, or widely unreliable long-term care insurance.
So, is giving context to the human effects of a story the job of a news organization? Does anyone in journalism even have to ask such a question? Yes, 60 Minutes—that’s the job. Fortunately, there is a growing call by media professionals for more contextual journalism, such as the efforts of the Solutions Journalism Network, that is, for reporting that doesn’t manipulate emotions or shock to raise rating, but sets the stories of people like the Dalys in the broader context of shared experience and real hope in models for change and potential action.
About half of Americans still don’t understand that Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term care. It will pay to stabilize you medically from, say, a stroke, but leave you and your family hanging as you struggle to walk or talk. On dementia, 60 Minutes well depicted a patient’s devastating decline both for Carol and her primary caregiver, Mike. But the producers failed the better journalistic tradition of the program as it celebrates its 50thanniversary year.
To paraphrase 60 Minutes: For more on solutions to this issue, go to these good sources: The Medicaring program headed by the highly regarded Joanne Lynn, MD. Another: SCAN Foundation, headed by Bruce Chernof, MD. Another: Commonwealth Fund’s Health Care Delivery System Reform program, managed by Melinda K. Abrams, MS. How about the AARP Public Policy Institute with Susan Reinhard, RN, PhDand Lynn Friss Feinberg, MSW; The Urban Institute’s program on long-term services and supports. That’s not even scratching the surface of respected sources offering research and perspective.
— Paul Kleyman
2. THE STORYBOARD
*** “Take It From our Family, Long-Term Care Takes a Devastating Toll on Finances and Emotional Health,” by Andrew Lam, Center for Health Journalism (April 6): Lam, an author and founding editor of New America Media, wrote, “The cost of aging in America is exorbitant as my siblings and I are finding out firsthand through our struggles over the past three years to take care of our aged parents. My mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, spends her remaining days mostly in a hospital bed in hospice care, but mercifully next to my father. Both live in an apartment in a high-end assisted living compound in Fremont, Calif.” (His father was a prominent officer in the South Vietnamese army and was interviewed for Ken Burnsand Lynn Novick’s recent series on the war.)
Besides that enormous expense of hospitalization and emergency visits over three months earlier this year, Lam writes, “the cost of assisted living for both is around $14,000 a month, a figure that only increases as more services are required.”
Lam goes on, “My parents’ story is part of a growing crisis. According to a 2016 study from the Department of Health and Human Services, 52 percent of Americans turning 65 today will require long-term care services during their lifetimes. About 12 percent will need between two and five years of long-term care, and nearly 14 percent will require five or more years — that’s one out of every seven adults. Such extended care can quickly dwindle savings and lead to bankruptcy, while placing tremendous pressure on family members forced to double as caregivers and health advocates.”
Although his parents’ long-term care insurance “has saved my parents from complete destitution in old age, it still falls short of the overall cost to keep them at the assisted living facility. All their monthly income — retirement, investment interests, social securities, you name it — now goes to pay the remainder left over after insurance, which covers less than two-thirds of their bills. The costs keep rising, chipping away at what remains of my parents’ personal savings.”
*** “Cutting ‘Old Heads’ at IBM,” by Peter Gosselin and Ariana Tobin for ProPublica, with the story co-published by Mother Jones (March 22): This blockbuster investigation reveals, ”As it scrambled to compete in the internet world, the once-dominant tech company cut tens of thousands of U.S. workers, hitting its most senior employees hardest and flouting rules against age bias.”
Following decades of inclusive and enlightened employment policies, says the story, “when high tech suddenly started shifting and companies went global, IBM faced the changing landscape with a distinction most of its fiercest competitors didn’t have: a large number of experienced and aging U.S. employees. The company reacted with a strategy that, in the words of one confidential planning document, would ‘correct seniority mix.’”
The story describes how IBM slashed its U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, “replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years.”
Gosselin and Tobin go on, “In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age discrimination.” The article emphasizes that although IBM is seldom mentioned in today’s high-tech coverage “With nearly 400,000 people worldwide, and tens of thousands still in the U.S., IBM remains a corporate giant.”
*** “The Truth About Older Consumers’ Diversity,” by Rachel Dornhelm, Stria News(March 19): “If you take your cue from pop culture, you might conclude that the typical older adult is a white, middle class product of the U.S. suburbs that cropped up after World War II. Yet that view is increasingly off the mark. Not only is America’s senior population far more racially, ethnically and culturally diverse than the stereotype, it is becoming more so with each passing day. Immigration trends, along with birthrates among different groups, are driving the change, which has implications for policymakers and all who serve the older population. Today, one in five older adults in the United States is a person of color. By 2040, one out of three elders will identify as non-white.”
She explains, “Nationwide, the number of older Latinos is projected to increase from 3.7 million today to 19.9 million in 2060, according to AARP. Similarly, the number of black Americans 65-plus will grow from 4.2 million today to 11.4 million in 2060. Those who identify as Asian, Native American and multiracial will also increase significantly in number. Health disparities provide an important reason to recognize the diversity among older Americans.”
By the way, Dornhelm, a public radio reporter for over 15 years with credits on such programs as APM’s Marketplace and NPR’s Morning Edition, is working towards her Master of Social Work degree, with a concentration in aging, at UC Berkeley.
*** “The Cheater’s Guide to Beating Alzheimer’s: New Research and Prevention Breakthroughs,” by Paula Spencer Scott, Parade (April 8): In her first-person cover story in the widely circulated Sunday newspaper supplement, Scott explains, “Scientists now think a complex mix of lifestyle, genes, age, environment and health conditions leads to the brain changes of Alzheimer’s—up to 20 or 25 years before obvious symptoms. . . At age 57, I’m exactly 25 years younger than the average age of my relatives when their memory loss and odd behaviors first showed up. ‘There’s been a shift toward changing the progress of disease before symptoms occur that’s really exciting,’ says Maria C. Carrillo, Ph.D., chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Association.”
*** “Medicare Doesn’t Equal Dental Care. That CanBe a Big Problem,” by Austin Frakt, New York Times(April 8): He wrote, “There are substantial coverage gaps in traditional Medicare. One of them is care for your teeth. Almost one in five adults of Medicare eligibility age (65 years old and older) have untreated cavities. The same proportion have lost all their teeth. Half of Medicare beneficiaries have some periodontal disease, or infection of structures around teeth, including the gums. Bacteria from such infections can circulate elsewhere in the body, contributing to other health problems such as heart disease and strokes.
The following stories were supported by a Journalists in Aging Fellowship from The Gerontological Society of America, New America Media, the Journalists Network on Generations (publisher of GBONews.org). We’re grateful for the support of the following nonprofit partners: Silver Century Foundation, AARP, the Commonwealth Fund, the Retirement Research Foundation, and the John A. Hartford Foundation. Here are the stories:
*** “Palliative Care: The Search for Comfort and Healing in The Face of Death,” by JoAnn Mar, KALW San Francisco Public Radio (April 10): This one-hournational documentary is the culmination of Mar’s two-year End of Life Radio Project . If you click through to the project website, you’ll also see her scripted version of the documentary with Mar’s photographs. In the wake of her mother’s death about a year ago, the George Polk Award-winning broadcaster decided to revisit her 1990s series on death and dying. Wanting to learn what, if anything, had changed since the 1990s, she found, “The answer is complicated: yes, end-of-life care has made significant progress, but we still have a long way to go.”
*** “Medicare Advantage Plans Cleared to Go Beyond Medical Coverage — Even Groceries,” by Journalists in Aging Fellow Susan Jaffe, Kaiser Health News: She wrote, “Air conditioners for people with asthma, healthy groceries, rides to medical appointments and home-delivered meals may be among the new benefits offered to Medicare beneficiaries who choose private sector health plans, when new federal rules take effect next year. On April 3, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expanded how it defines the ‘primarily health-related benefits’ that private insurers are allowed to include in their Medicare Advantage policies.” She noted, “Of the 61 million people enrolled in Medicare last year, 20 million opted for Medicare Advantage, the privately-run alternative to the traditional government program.” Jaffe continues, “patient advocates including David Lipschutz. senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, are concerned about the majority, who may be left behind in traditional Medicare plans. You can also find the story on California Healthline, and the Diverse Elders Coalition website.
*** Heart Disease Still Deadly for African American Women, by D. Kevin McNeir, editor, the Washington Informer (April 16, 2018): Experts and former heart patients spoke at arecent conference of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and Association of Black Cardiologists at the Harvard Club in New York. McNeir wrote, “Often thought of as a ‘man’s disease,’ heart disease stands as the leading cause of death for women in the United States with black and Hispanic women facing higher risks than whites while also significantly less aware of their cardiovascular risks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control attributes the disparities, which disproportionately impact women of color, to language and cultural barriers, lack of access to prevention care and lack of insurance.” Of particular concern, speaker said, is that “women, who tend to serve as the primary caregivers for their families while often ignoring their own health, can ill afford to wait until the dust finally clears, particularly when it comes to their hearts.”
*** “Chinese Seniors in New York: Where to Live,” by Zhihong Li, Diverse Elders Coalition, Feb. 21, 2018. (Read the original article in Chinese at Sing Tao Daily, click here. Zhihong “Cecilia” Li writes, “New York City’s aging Chinese population is increasing rapidly as affordable housing has become rarer. To solve this problem, some local elected officials ask the city to approve the building of more affordable housing.” Also, “An immigrant from China, Aunt Lee, now nearly 91, said many in New York’s Chinese community were unwilling to move so far from Chinatown then, but today it is extremely difficult to find an empty affordable apartment for seniors there. Because of age, income, language barriers, immigrant status and other issues, some Chinese seniors who already live in an apartment may face more problems and even discriminations than other people.”
3. FISCAL REFORM SCHOOL
*** “Conservatives, Business Leaders Worried About Deficit Take Aim at Social Security, Medicare,” commentary by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times (April 9). The Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist starts, “One would have thought that after saddling the U.S. economy with a tax cut costing $1.5 trillion over 10 years, conservatives and their patrons in corporate America would soft-pedal the usual attacks on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.One would be wrong.”
Hiltzik focuses on the recent anti-deficit drumbeat for cuts in social-insurance benefits by five GOP movers and shakers at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, who evoked the “debt crisis” in the Washington Post. Gritting their teeth over “sharply rising entitlement spending” in coming years were the likes of Michael J. Boskin, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under PresidentGeorge H.W. Bush, and President Ronald Reagan’sSecretary of State, George P. Shultz.
While they militate with their idea of fiscal prudence, requiring sacrifices from ordinary Americans in retirement, Hiltzik defers to the “uncompromising deficit hawks at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget” for their calculation of “the cuts could cost as much as $1.7 trillionover a decade, net of any economic gains it might engender.”
GBONews readers can wade through the budgetary weeds of the conservatives’ estimations in Hiltzik’s opposing argument. But it’s helpful here that he notesthat the GOP tax cuts “will help push the federal deficit over $1 trillion next year, according to the CBO, which makes clear that they won’t pay for themselves.”
Hiltzik concludes, “The politicians unsheathing their paring knives for Social Security and Medicare undoubtedly are hoping that Americans’ memories are short — that when they claim that it’s social programs like these that are driving the deficit, no one will recall that the single biggest driver of red ink is that tax cut delivered to the very members of society who needed help the least.”
*** Speaking of short memories and the GOP’s deified 38thU.S. President, economics and political reporters who blithely cite conservative deficit projections (from members of both parties) that lump together Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as a rising proportion of federal spending, should listen to what Ronald Reagan actually said on the topic. He made the following 36-second statement on Oct. 7, 1984, explaining that Social Security does not add even a penny to the deficit.
*** Okay, so how’s the 45thpresident doing with older voters? Reporting for Reuters (April 9), Sharon Bernstein and Chris Kahn authored the analysis piece, “Exclusive: As Elections Near, Many Older, Educated, White Voters Shift Away from Trump’s Party,” They wrote, “Older, white, educated voters helped Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Now, they are trending toward Democrats in such numbers that their ballots could tip the scales in tight congressional races from New Jersey to California, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll and a data analysis of competitive districts shows.”
The survey determined that, at least for now, college-educated whites over age 60 “favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress by a 2-point margin. During the same period in 2016, that same group favored Republicans for Congress by 10 percentage points. The 12-point swing is one of the largest shifts in support toward Democrats that the Reuters/Ipsos poll has measured over the past two years.”
The story goes on, “’The real core for the Republicans is white, older white, and if they’re losing ground there, they’re going to have a tsunami,’ said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist who closely tracks political races. ‘If that continues to November, they’re toast.’”
So, what’s their beef with the GOP? “The number of educated older adults choosing ‘healthcare’ in the Reuters/Ipsos poll as their top issue nearly tripled over the past two years, from 8 percent to 21 percent.” Although to pool didn’t ask voters to specify their health care concerns, the article noted that other reporting and polling has shown the older people worry fear the repealing of the Affordable Care Act, while “others cite high prescription drug costs and the high cost of healthcare in general.” (Hence, President Trump’s most recent Tweets against rising drug prices. Maybe his Propecia bill went up, a worry for the president if Dr. Jackson isn’t still around to squeeze him the hair cream with or without a prescription.)
The story Reuters adds that how seniors vote “could decide elections in as many as 26 competitive congressional districts where Democrats have a shot at winning a seat. A Reuters analysis of U.S. Census data shows highly educated older voters make up about 5-10 percent of the population in those areas. Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to win control of the House of Representatives.”
Almost no one, of course, thought the electorate would even be at this juncture in 2016.
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 2018 JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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