"We’re Getting Old, but We’re Not Doing Anything About It-Like climate change, the aging of America demands a serious rethinking of the way we live," Susan Jacoby, New York Times, December 23, 2019
"One of the paradoxes of this presidential campaign is that while many of the candidates are in their eighth decade of life, fundamental issues associated with the aging of American society are still receiving relatively little attention from the public, the press, and politicians themselves. In 2031, the oldest baby boomers will turn 85, entering the land of the “old-old” and facing exponentially higher risk for dementia, serious physical disabilities, and long-term dependency.

Like climate change, the aging of America demands serious reconsideration of the way we live. Confronting the issue and its many implications, from Medicare’s failure to cover long-term care to the ethics of physician-assisted dying, requires what seems to be the most difficult task for human beings — thinking about the future."

Go here -> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/opinion/america-aging.html?referringSource=articleShare

"Older Americans are among the many groups that President Trump’s proposed 2021 budget would seriously harm. While running for president, Trump repeatedly promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, which serve tens of millions of seniors — and he made a similar promise at his State of the Union just last week. Nevertheless, his budget calls for cutting Social Security and Medicaid as well as cutting or eliminating other critical supports for older Americans, many of them struggling to get by. And that’s even as he proposed to extend the 2017 tax law and he plans even more tax cuts, which would provide a bonanza to the most well-off Americans and profitable corporations.

Here are some details of the harm to older Americans:"
Go here -> https://www.cbpp.org/blog/trump-budget-would-hurt-older-americans-0

And here -> https://www.dailyyonder.com/analysis-how-trumps-changes-to-disability-insurance-will-hurt-rural-peopleith-disabilities/2020/02/10/

"President Trump’s 2021 budget would make it harder for millions of people with disabilities to afford such basics as food, housing, and health care by cutting tens of billions of dollars from disability programs, including Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). And it would compound the hit for those with disabilities by also severely cutting Medicaid, food assistance, and housing vouchers, all while proposing to extend tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit those at the top.

Here’s how the budget would hurt people with disabilities:"

Go here -> https://www.cbpp.org/blog/presidents-budget-would-hurt-people-with-disabilities-1

"In accordance with the old adage that budgets are political documents, President Trump’s budgets are windows into his political id. Trump’s proposed $4.8-trillion budget for the 2021 fiscal year makes his intentions crystal clear: He means to shred the federal safety net for the poor and the sick.

The budget proposal released Monday calls for drastic cuts in Social Security and Medicaid benefits, as well as in a program protecting defrauded student loan borrowers. Medicare spending will also be cut, although the extent to which the reductions would affect benefits is unclear.

These cuts all are presented under the heading, “Restrain spending to protect and respect American taxpayers.” Who are the taxpayers Trump is talking about? The wealthy, whose take from the 2017 tax cuts won’t be affected one whit."

Go here -> https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-10/trump-budget-shreds-the-federal

And here -> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/10/trumps-budget-reveals-tremendous-fraud/

"As older adults age into later life, they often face disruptive changes that make their dwell­ings, neighborhoods, and communities seem less appealing. When they retire and seek new leisure, volunteer or career activities, they may be disappointed by what is available nearby. After their children depart, older adults may feel that their homes are uncomfortably large, and utility costs, property taxes, and mortgage payments are overly high. The smaller income stream in retirement can mean that such home expenses become financially burdensome. About 54 percent of ages 65 and older renters and 26 percent of older homeowners are cost-burdened, paying more than 30 percent of their monthly income for housing.

Because these dwellings also are aging, they typically require constant repairs and upgrades, and may pose fall risks due to stairs that are expensive to modify. Only about 15 percent of house­holds with moderate mobility difficulties occupy dwellings that are accessible.

Often, older adults must weather loneliness and depression from the deaths of a spouse or friends. And as neigh­­borhoods evolve, chances for social isolation can increase if surroundings no longer seem safe or socially compatible. Nationally, among people ages 65 to 69 and ages 70 and older, 36 percent and 24 percent felt lonely, respectively. As health conditions, mobility limi­tations and mental declines occur, activities such as residen­tial upkeep, self-care, medication management and getting around become challenging. Low-den­sity suburbs in particular present trans­portation barriers when elders give up driving. About one-third of older persons have unmet travel needs.

Despite these factors, older people find that moving is an unwelcome way to change their im­perfect worlds. In most years, only about 2 percent of homeowners ages 65 and older, and 10 per­cent of the same-age-cohort of renters, change their addresses—rates of moving that are much lower than for any other age group."

Go here -> https://www.asaging.org/blog/aging-place-or-trapped-place

"Retirees are apparently unpersuaded that it’s a good idea to convert their substantial home equity into some retirement income.

One way to tap this home equity is through state programs that defer older homeowners’ property taxes. The programs are offered in many states, but very few people take advantage of them. Retirees are also skeptical about the benefits of converting their equity into income using a federally insured reverse mortgage: only about 50,000 older homeowners, on average, get them every year.

A big concern is that if they ever sell the house, the back taxes or the reverse mortgage must be paid back – with interest.

But a new study by the Center for Retirement Research finds that this is an unlikely scenario for the majority of retirees, because they rarely move or don’t move at all."

Go here -> https://squaredawayblog.bc.edu/squared-away/most-older-americans-age-in-their-homes/

And here -> https://crr.bc.edu/working-papers/are-homeownership-patterns-stable-enough-to-tap-home-equity/

"At the beginning of each new year, UNICEF organizes a global campaign to celebrate the birth of the year’s first babies. This time, we cheered the arrival of 2020 and of a little over 392,000 new babies. The average life expectancy of a girl born today is 79.6 years—for a boy it is 76.2 years—which means that she and her peers will live to shape the rest of this century. And one thing is clear: These newborns of the decade will live in a fundamentally different world than the one their parents knew."

Go here -> https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/01/14/living-into-the-22nd-century/

"USAFacts is a new data-driven portrait of the American population, our government’s finances, and government’s impact on society. We are a nonpartisan, not-for-profit civic initiative and have no political agenda or commercial motive. We provide this information as a free public service and are committed to maintaining and expanding it in the future."

Go here -> https://usafacts.org/

"This report presents final 2018 U.S. mortality data on deaths and death rates by demographic and medical characteristics. These data provide information on mortality patterns among U.S. residents by variables such as sex, age, race and Hispanic origin, and cause of death. Life expectancy estimates, 10 leading causes of death, age-specific death rates, and 10 leading causes of infant death were analyzed by comparing 2018 and 2017 final data."

Go here -> https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm

"Home health and personal care aides are often referred to as “the eyes and ears” of the U.S. health care system. Still, they’re infrequently used in care teams and often undervalued by the providers they work for.

Changing the recognition of in-home care professionals is going to take hard work, innovative approaches and dedicated advocacy, according to Dr. Robyn Stone, senior vice president of research at LeadingAge and director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center at UMass Boston.

Home Health Care News recently caught up with Dr. Stone to learn more about the evolution of care teams and how in-home care aides fit into health care’s future. During the conversation, the noted researcher also shared best practices for recruiting and retention, common pain points for home health and home care providers alike."

Go here -> https://homehealthcarenews.com/2020/02/leadingage-expert-robyn-stone-career-lattices-healthy-relationships-key-to-keeping-in-home-care-staff/

"During a recent workshop at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, DC, another panelist and I raised a complaint familiar to many leaders working in the long-term care field.

“‘Unskilled’ is the most inappropriate moniker you could ever hear,” said Joanne Spetz, Health Economics Professor at the University of California, San Francisco and Director of its Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care, referencing a term frequently used to describe home care workers.

Dr. Spetz’s comments were part of a daylong session titled “Building the Workforce We Need to Care for People with Serious Illness.” Like her and others in the field, I regularly encounter—among individuals and the literature—problematic terms that wrongly classify home care work and underplay its complexity.

“I worry that the classification of ‘unskilled’ really understates their knowledge and what they bring to the table,” Dr. Spetz told the group. “We’ve got plenty of skill, talent, and passion to draw from in this workforce.”

Go here ->https://phinational.org/lets-call-home-care-work-what-it-is-skilled-work/ 

And here -> https://phinational.org/caringforthefuture/itstimetocare/

"The number of workers with intellectual and developmental disabilities integrated into the workforce has largely plateaued in the past year, and the national turnover rate for those providing direct support for such people is nearing 45 percent, according to a Thursday report from the ANCOR Foundation and United Cerebral Palsy (UCP).

The groups’ 2020 edition of their Case for Inclusion report, exclusively provided to The Hill, found that the percentage of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) in integrated employment — that is, those working alongside abled people and earning market-driven wages — increased only 1 percentage point to 20 percent over the past year."

Go here -> https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/other/481677-turnover-for-direct-support-staff-for-disabled-americans-reached

And here ->  https://caseforinclusion.org/

"Craig Holly was determined to fight when the home health agency caring for his wife decided to cut off services Jan. 18. The reason he was given by an agency nurse? His wife was disabled but stable, and Medicare was changing its payment system for home health.

Euphrosyne “Effie” Costas-Holly, 67, has advanced multiple sclerosis. She can’t walk or stand and relies on an overhead lift system to move from room to room in their house. Effie wasn’t receiving a lot of care: just two visits every week from aides who gave her a bath, and one visit every two weeks from a nurse who evaluated her and changed her suprapubic catheter, a device that drains urine from a tube inserted in the abdomen."

Go here -> https://khn.org/news/what-to-do-if-your-home-health-care-agency-ditches-you/

"Working Longer May Be Good Public Policy, But It Is Not Necessarily Good for Older People," Philip Taylor, Ph.D., Journal of Aging and Social Policy, 2019
"Older people are facing a changed set of expectations regarding work and retirement. Until quite recently early retirement was being encouraged. Today's older workers, however, are contemplating longer working lives amid policy concerns about the costs of social welfare associated with an aging population. While working longer is, almost universally, being promoted as a social and individual good this article argues that this policy shift is unlikely to change the situation of many older workers who would have needed to continue working anyway. It also argues that the emphasis on prolonged employment undervalues engagement in activities beyond employment. As well, it argues that the emphasis on prolonging employment neglects to account for the attendant risks for many of continuing to work or having to seek work and the potential health- and well-being-enhancing effects of retirement."

Go here -> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08959420.2019.1576487