GBONEWS: Where Trump-Musk Rubber Hits the Old – Tips From Gen-Beat Reporters; Oscar’s Ageism Challenge; 3 Journalism Fellowships; RFK Jr. Breaks His Word; NIH Alzheimer’s Center Is Cut; Generational Impact of Fed Firings; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.
March 1, 2024 — Volume 32, Number 3
EDITOR’S NOTE: GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. If you have difficulty getting to the full issue of GBONews with the links provided below, simply go to www.gbonews.org to read the latest or past editions. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply send a request to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman [pfkleyman@gmail.com] with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, we’ll email the table of contents and links to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities.
In This Issue: Heroes Are Still Heroes, and Crooks Still Sound Like Nixon.
1. WHERE THE TRUMP-MUSK RUBBER HITS THE OLD: *** Medicare Dis-Advantage; *** Medicaid and Eldercare; *** Promising State Actions; *** Generational Impact of Fed Firings; *** Rural Shockwaves; *** Will Congressional Town Meetings Be Wild?
2. AGEISM, SEXISM AND THE OSCARS, OH MY! *** “At 97 Oscars Show 50-Plus Successes – But Will Hollywood Green-Light More?” by Paul Kleyman, PBS Next Avenue
3. THE STORYBOARD:*** “Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Promises,” by Susan Jaffe, The Lancet “World Report”;
*** “House GOP Plan Targets Medicaid,” KFF Health News weekly “What the Health?” podcast, with host Julie Rovner;
*** “Oops: Trump-Musk Cuts Just Wrecked an NIH Org Championed by GOPers,” by Greg Sargent, The New Republic;
*** “New Social Security chief contradicts claims that millions of dead people are getting payouts,” by Fatima Hussein, Associated Press;
*** “Why benefit increases prompted by the Social Security Fairness Act may be difficult to implement,” by Lorie Konish, CNBC;
*** “Ageism in health care is a $63 billion problem. An expert offers 8 ways to combat it,” by Liz Seegert.
4. EYES ON THE PRIZE: *** Reporting Fellowship Deadlines at USC’s Center for Health Journalism and National Press Foundation
1. WHERE THE TRUMP-MUSK RUBBER HITS THE OLD
The Trump-Musk Administration has flooded the nation with public consternation in its atmospheric-river swamping so many federal functions. This Special Issue of GBONews.org is the first of our reports from the field, intended to suggest where reporters on aging might find rocks to look under and corners to peer around, for promising story angles on how the Trump-Musk tumult will likely affect older Americans, their families and communities.
As always, the dust-devil is in the details: Will Elon Musk’s chaotic DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency?) get full access to the population’s Social Security records, and for what purpose? Will Medicare and Medicaid be increasingly privatized? What about funding for programs like Meals on Wheels? Where’s a generations-beat to start?
To answer those questions, GBONews.org asked several veteran reporters on aging, and a seasoned political hand or two in the field of aging for their tips on what journalists should keep their eyes on. Following are excerpts from their replies.
Medicare’s Dis-Advantage
* “Medicare is really in a precarious situation,” asserted Trudy Lieberman, [trudy.lieberman@gmail.com] a past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists, who also served as a contributing editor for the Columbia Journalism Review, told GBONews.
Currently a columnist for Health Care Un-Covered, she said that if the president continues following recommendations of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” he will “probably want to privatize the whole thing, and put everyone in a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan. . . Get rid of Medicare as we know it. Half of the people on Medicare don’t want MA. That’s going to be a big story. If people get pushed into that, reporters need to get up to speed on it.”
Concurring with Lieberman was Rodney A. Brooks, author of Fixing the Racial Wealth Gap and financial columns for U.S. News & World Report and other major outlets. He noted that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.Kennedy, Jr., “is a proponent of switching people to Medicare Advantage plans. More than 50 percent of people are on those plans . . . If you go with Medicare Advantage, you must go with doctors in that plan.”
For Brooks’ family it became personal: “Last year my sister’s [MA] plan made a change, and her primary care physician was no longer in the plan. That meant a 72-year-old woman with multiple health issues had to suddenly go out and find a new doctor.”
“Shifts in Medicare policy should be closely watched,” Brooks advised. “I’d watch to see if the laws reducing the costs of Medicare drugs might be changed or rescinded – especially that $35 cap for insulin.”
* Mark Miller, a frequent contributor the NYT’s Sunday Business “Retiring” column, concurred: “Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act contained important reforms to Medicare’s Part D prescription drug coverage, including a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs starting this year [and] caps the cost of insulin for Medicare enrollees at $35 per month, along with other cost-saving measures. Will Trump and Republicans in Congress try to repeal the law, and go after these reforms?”
He went on, “Medicare already is substantially privatized, with about half of enrollees in managed-care Advantage plans and most enrolled in privately-offered Part D prescription drug and Medigap supplemental plans. [MA] is expected to cover 64% of beneficiaries by 2034.”
Miller, whose respected Retirement Revised blog runs on Substack, added, “Trump’s nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Dr. Mehmet Oz, is a fan of Advantage, and there’s plenty CMS can do to tilt the playing field toward this privatized Medicare option via changes to rules and its approach to regulation.”
* Chris Farrell, senior economics contributor at public radio’s Marketplace and author of Purpose and a Paycheck and Unretirement, noted that “the Wall Street Journal, NYT, and others had done really good investigative pieces on Medicare Advantage gaming the payment system.”
Some of the pushback from Medicare, in targeting waste, fraud and abuse, he said, “is showing up in less robust earnings. My guess is Medicare Advantage providers will breathe easier, especially if these plans become the default option (which looks likely).”
Medicaid and Long-Term Care
Miller, whose latest book is Retirement Reboot: Common Sense Strategies for Getting Back on Track (Agate Publishing, 2023), stressed the need for reporters to keep in mind that “Medicaid covers about two-thirds of nursing home stays. If Republicans follow through on their promise to block-grant Medicaid to the states, we’ll see unprecedented upheaval in this sector, as states grapple with sharp reductions in funds.”
Health care coverage for millions of Americans could turn on measures the White House and GOP-led Congress pursue regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Miller noted, “This year, 24% of Americans enrolled in an ACA marketplace plan were aged 55-64, according to KFF News.”
Miller went on, “Short of fully repealing ACA, the new administration and Congress could roll back the ACA expansion of Medicaid for low-income people. And it could increase premium costs for millions of people by doing nothing at all.”
He explained, “Temporary premium subsidies were added to the program, as a coronavirus pandemic relief measure under the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021, and extended through the end of 2025 by the law. The subsidies have reduced the cost of coverage substantially and boosted enrollment. If the subsidies are not renewed, premiums would double or more for people with policies in 12 states who enrolled through the federal exchange.”
Also, Chris Farrell said, “Looking at the professional direct-care workforce, I don’t see how their circumstances will change for the better. Since nearly half the direct care workforce relies on public benefits, especially Medicaid, to make ends meet, odds are these benefits will be less generous or unavailable during the Trump Administration.
He added, “I don’t see Medicaid hiking payments to agencies and workers to help meet the demand for services. And it’s hard to imagine that we’ll see subsidies to improve the pay of the direct care workforce while making professional caregiving services more affordable to families.”
In addition, Farrell is “pessimistic” about whether much discussed “tax changes will benefit family caregivers, but with all the coming negotiations going on about tax cuts, it will be important to watch and see if family caregivers and tax credits find a seat at the table.”
Don’t Forget State Actions
* At the state level, Lieberman lamented, the U.S. news outlets have “kind of abandoned long-term care (LTC). For instance, she said, “There has been almost no coverage of Washington State’s new Washington Cares (WA Cares) program. It really was a salient program, and it’s been upheld by voters in the November election. I mean, the industry tried to get rid of it.”
As veteran health-finance journalist Howard Gleckman described in Forbes, following the election, “The WA Cares law provides up to $36,500 in LTC insurance benefits, with the amount increasing with inflation. It is funded with a payroll tax surcharge of 0.58 percent on all workers in the state. For a median income worker, who makes about $78,000, that equals about $450 annually, or about $9 a week.”
Voters rejected the effort to nullify the ballot initiative, which was financed by wealthy hedge fund manager, by 55%-44%. Gleckman wrote, “States such as California, Illinois, Minnesota, and Massachusetts are exploring their own public long-term care financing ideas.” Had the initiative passed, those states would have had “second thoughts about the political viability of a universal tax-funded public program.”
Lieberman urged reporters to look toward state actions, such WA Cares, which may at least partly counterbalance likely federal reductions. State innovations also emerge as models for changes around the nation.
Another prime source on state innovations around LTC and eldercare is Robert Applebaum, PhD, (applebra@miamioh.edu) director of the Ohio Long-Term Care Project at the Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
Speaking last fall to the Journalists in Aging Fellows Program*, Applebaum explained that “across the U.S. there’s been a tremendous expansion of home and community-based services,” often with bipartisan support. These have been done both through public expenditures, mainly Medicaid, and private out-of-pocket payments, as public demand has intensified for more residential alternatives to institutional nursing care, as the nation has rapidly ages. (*The Journalists in Aging Fellows Program is the collaboration between GBONews.org publisher, the Journalists Network on Generations, and the Gerontological Society of America.)
Applebaum, who has worked with more than 25 states on LTC services and led a series of related state and national studies, said that in 2001, nursing homes absorbed 71% of Medicaid dollars, versus 29% for home-and-community-based services. But by 2021, the proportions had flipped to 63% of Medicaid expenditures going to home and community care, with 37% to nursing homes. It will be important for reporters to scrutinize how states respond to federal Medicaid reductions and continue adopting their own measures to serve their constituents.
Generational Impact of Layoffs, Firings
Marketplace’s Farrell, also an NYT “Retiring” columnist, emailed GBONews, “The sweeping layoffs of those in their probationary period (I suspect) are mostly in their 20s to 40s. The older group of workers in probationary positions look to be veterans making a shift from military service to other types of jobs in the federal government.”
He continued, “The other type of federal workers being laid off are older workers. And, I’ll bet, when we get some better data, we’ll find a large group of older workers decided to retire rather than deal with the turmoil. I’d probably focus on the older workers and their talent, skills and experience leaving or being pushed out of the federal government.”
Farrell wrote that another possible consequence of the blanket layoffs is “what happens to the federal government programs that were designed to allow retirees to come back to work and keep their benefits.”
He emphasized, “The people I talked to in these programs tended to be the most highly skilled. The various federal reserve banks had also established programs to encourage second careers, especially with professional women who had left their first career behind for family reasons and now wanted back into the workforce.”
Shockwaves in Rural America
Farrell, a senior economics analyst for Minnesota Public Radio, is keenly aware from his years covering the Grain Belt State that “rural America is older.”
He wrote GBONews, “When I look at grants for refugees being frozen here in Minnesota, the money was mostly going to rural areas. Now it’s frozen. The kids probably aren’t in school which threatens the school funding (and a town dies when the schools are closed). Tariffs aren’t good for the agricultural economy. Immigration crackdowns aren’t healthy for the local economy. Older rural residents have been increasingly embracing small business and self-employment. But if the rural economy is shrinking, so is your market.”
* Spring Break? Journalists would do well to watch what happens when Congress goes on its spring break, April 14-18, 2025. Robert M. “Bob” Blancato, a long-time legislative advocate for such causes as elder-abuse prevention, and Meals on Wheels, stressed that media closely observe the GOP’s “tight margins” of merely two or three votes, especially in the House.
Blancato speculated that numerous Republicans may find their seats “endangered in the House” because their districts have large Medicaid populations. More representatives may encounter repetitions of February’s contentious town-hall meetings, “where Republican members were confronted” about the chaos and job cuts by “Trump 2.0 and Musk,” he said. “If this were to intensify, it could lead to a course correction by Trump.”
*** BASTA! for now — The next GBONews.org – in the coming week or so — will pick up our virtual media roundtable at Social Security, older workers and other story nuggets, and some good strategies (and wise counsel) for digging into “what the public needs to know,” that long–sanctified job description for journalists.
For now, we’ll mark the end of this copy with the advice of John F. Wasik, author of about 20 books and a national retirement finance columnist for Reuters, Forbes, the NYT and others. He prompted GBONews readers to “focus on people, not numbers. It’s one thing to say your community is going to lose so many dollars, it’s another to put a face on the losses. Who’s going to lose something? What will it mean to them and their community?”
More to come from Wasik next time. And check out Wasik’s free newsletter, Refinement.
2. AGEISM, SEXISM AND THE OSCARS, OH MY!
*** “At 97 Oscars Show 50-Plus Successes – But Will Hollywood Green-Light More?” by Paul Kleyman, PBS Next Avenue (Feb. 25, 2025): The Dek –” Older actors and themes are having impact and some experts wonder if that will bring a new wrinkle to the media’s obsession with youth.”
The Lede: “Oscar turns 97 on March 2. Judging by so many 50-plus nominees, he (and many shes) are springing forward with critical and box-office successes. Yet, readers are well aware of persistent ageist slights in advertising and comedy, as well as the paucity of movie choices reflecting the lived experience of our mature years.”
A Quote: Speaking this January at Stanford University’s Center on Longevity’s ‘Century Summit V,’ Amy Baer, producer of the Oscar-nominated film, The Apprentice, and also Board of Directors President of Women in Film, said ‘A big theme today is the -ism of ageism, and how we’re committed culturally to looking at sexism and racism and other -ism. But I don’t necessarily think the [film] industry thinks about [age bias], I think it’s unconscious — it doesn’t think about it as one of those -isms.”
3. THE STORYBOARD
Meanwhile, here are links to some factual, explanatory coverage, along with a few nutty claims by the Elon, Duke of DOGE, and his Orange-haired Liege.
*** “Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Promises,” by Susan Jaffe, The Lancet “World Report” (March 1, 2025): The Crux – “To earn enough Senate votes for confirmation as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F Kennedy, Jr. made some surprising promises for someone aspiring to become the nation’s top health official.
“He had to reassure a few skeptical Republican senators that he would not overturn years of accepted public health policies, medical practice, and scientific consensus. And yet, in just the short time since assuming his new post on Feb 13, Kennedy’s actions—and inaction—appear to undermine those commitments as thousands of HHS employees are laid off under President Donald Trump’s executive orders shrinking the size and cost of government.”
*** “House GOP Plan Targets Medicaid,” KFF Health News weekly “What the Health?” podcast, with host Julie Rovner (Feb. 27, 2025): Podcast Lede In — “The House GOP’s budget proposal, which narrowly passed on Tuesday, likely would result in major cuts to Medicaid, the health program primarily for those with low incomes or who are disabled, to help pay for tax cuts. That sets up a battle with the Senate, which passed a separate, more modest budget proposal that includes neither tax cuts nor cuts to health programs — at least not initially.
“Meanwhile, federal courts continue to weigh in on whether the Trump administration has the authority to cancel congressionally appropriated funding for federal programs and to summarily dismiss federal workers.”
*** “Oops: Trump-Musk Cuts Just Wrecked an NIH Org Championed by GOPers,” by Greg Sargent, The New Republic(Feb. 19, 2025): “Republicans once lavished praise on an NIH center that deals with Alzheimer’s. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are hobbling it. What will those Republicans say now?”
Memory Cuts: “One downsizing just started attracting notice among insiders at the National Institutes of Health, because it seems particularly inexplicable: According to people familiar with the situation, approximately one-tenth of the workers have now been let go at the NIH’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias, or CARD, including its incoming director, a highly regarded scientist credited with important innovations in the field.”
*** “New Social Security chief contradicts claims that millions of dead people are getting payouts,” by Fatima Hussein, Associated Press (Feb. 19, 2025): The Lede: “The new head of the Social Security Administration said Wednesday that deceased centenarians are ‘not necessarily receiving benefits,’ contradicting claims that tens of millions of dead people over the age of 100 are getting payments from the agency.
Who: “Lee Dudek, the new acting SSA commissioner who was placed in the role by President Donald Trump, gave the clarification after Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk falsely claimed on social media and in press briefings that people who are 100, 200 and even 300 years old are improperly and routinely getting benefits.”
Threadbare Software: “Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the COBOL programming language, which has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago. . . Additionally, a series of reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database. . .
“This does not mean, however, that these individuals were receiving benefits. . . A July 2023 Social Security OIG report states that ‘almost none of the [Social Security] numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.’ And, as of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.”
*** “Why benefit increases prompted by the Social Security Fairness Act may be difficult to implement,” by Lorie Konish, CNBC (Feb. 13, 2025): The Lede: “A new law, the Social Security Fairness Act, provides benefit increases for more than 3.2 million individuals including certain teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public servants.Yet the Social Security Administration has said it may take more than a year to process all of the benefit changes. ‘Congress either provides funding to cover the implementation costs.”
*** “Ageism in health care is a $63 billion problem. An expert offers 8 ways to combat it,” by Liz Seegert (Feb. 23, 2025): The Lede: “Your doctor dismisses your health concerns as a normal part of aging. They only speak to the adult child accompanying you, as if you weren’t even in the room. You leave with yet another prescription to treat symptoms, rather than learning the root cause of your complaint. Sound familiar? Your doctor could be ageist.
Health Impact: “Ageism in healthcare is often an overlooked form of discrimination, yet its effects can significantly impact the quality of care older adults receive. This bias is pervasive, and ageist assumptions—often unrecognized—can hinder diagnoses, compromise treatment plans, and undermine the dignity of patients.”
A Quote: “As the population ages, it is increasingly vital to address this issue head-on, according to Mark Brennan-Ing, director of research and evaluation at the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging, City University of New York. ‘It’s really robbing that older person their autonomy and their sense of agency and contributing to a sense of loss of control as they’re getting older,”’ he says.”
4. EYES ON THE PRIZE
Three Fellowship Deadlines at USC’s Center for Health Journalism, National Press Foundation, CUNY New York
*** Health Journalism National Fellowship program set April 9, 2025, as its application deadline. The fellowship “helps journalists and their newsrooms report deeply and authoritatively on the health, welfare and well-being of children, families and communities,” says the Center’s website.
Those selected receive a $2,000-$10,000 grant to help with reporting costs, plus-in-person intensive training. Also, “Fellows also are eligible to apply for five months of professional mentorship in engaged journalism, and $1,000-$2,000 to support those creative efforts.”
Fellows will gather in Los Angeles for an intensive training program, June 23-26, 2025. Our fellowship provides journalists a chance to step away from breaking news to take a deep look together at pervasive social and economic inequities in the United States, and the lasting health effects of systemic racism and exclusion on families and communities. Reporters can direct questions to chj@usc.edu.
*** The Impact Fund for Reporting on Health Equity and Health Systems, says the Center’s website, “supports ambitious investigative or explanatory projects on systemic racism in public health, health care policy and the practice of medicine, including inequity in treatment, access to care, patient experience and health outcomes for Black people, Indigenous people and other people of color. Grantees receive a 2,000-$10,000 grant to help with reporting costs, five months of professional mentorship from a veteran journalist, monthly online development and brainstorming sessions with other reporters in their class and four webinars devoted to health equity in health systems. Apply by March 26!”
*** Travel Fellowships Are Available for Health Journalism ’25, the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) annual conference being held this year in Los Angeles, May 29 to June 1.
This year, AHCJ is offering 10 kinds of fellowships, each with an application deadline of March 19, 2025. The Fellowships differ somewhat, but they typically offer modest supplemental support ($500 for an economy flight and/or ground transportation) for members wishing to attend.
The program offers Freelance Travel Scholarships, as well as Fellowships for reporters from specific states or cities with support from foundations in those regions. Among them are such states as California, New York, Wisconsin, Kansas-Missouri and Texas, as well as the cities of Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans or Fresno.
AHCJ also announced that the bestselling “queen of quirky science” books, Mary Roach, will be this year’s featured luncheon speaker. Among her many books have been the science behind war (Grunt), the bizarre quirks of digestion (Gulp), or what really happens to the human body after death (Stiff). She’s a delightful and entertaining keynoter.
The conference will also include the 21st annual Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism, which are now accepting entries.
*** The Deadline is March 6, 2025, for the National Press Foundation’s (NPF) Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting. The award, which carries a $10,000 prize, is open to U.S.-based journalists, in any media. They require a non-refundable $20 fee for each application. For questions or tech issues with the application, contact Alyssa Black at ablack@nationalpress.org. But also, NPF offers numerous fellowships and programs each year, so spend a few minutes looking over their website for other opportunities.
*** Apply by March 24 for a seminar titled, “How to Cover Aging: From ‘Healthspan’ Disparities to Age-Friendly Cities,”being held at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in New York City, June 4-6, 2025. “Open to journalists who have at least three years of full-time experience or the equivalent. . . . Participants will be reimbursed for their transportation to and from New York City. Lodging and food will be provided.”
Along with expert presentations, says their website, “Each participant will be paired with a mentor, an experienced journalist on the aging beat, who will help them refine their pitch.” Among the mentors are: Paula Span, The New Old Age columnist at The New York Times, and Tara Bahrampour, who spent two decades at The Washington Post. Apply here. Those with questions may contact agingbeat@journalism.cuny.edu.
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 2025 Paul Kleyman. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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