Latest news with #OnAging
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, this is what the nation's top experts on aging worry about
At the most recent annual conference of the American Society on Aging, the topic on the minds of the nation's leading experts on aging was the future of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the current political environment. Their insights, which are vitally important to anyone in or near retirement, mostly ranged from dour to downright bleak. 'We are the most privileged': My husband and I are tired of paying for our friends. How do we get them to pay their way? Stock market's rapid rebound from tariff-inspired rout stuns Wall Street. But there were signs this would happen. Warren Buffett proves, once again, why he's the best If you read April's jobs report, you won't be surprised by the No. 1 'best job' in America My eldest son refused to share his father's $500K inheritance with his siblings. Should I cut him off? 'This is nothing like anyone's ever seen before,' said Amy Gotwals, chief of public policy and external affairs at USAging (formerly the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging). 'There's an incredible amount of disruption.' The anxiety-filled On Aging conference came near the end of President Donald Trump's first 100 days back in the White House, a period that has featured dramatic changes, proposals and staffing cutbacks for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — programs that provide benefits primarily to older Americans. Many of those actions have been decided on and carried out by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. 'For the first time in a long time, Congress is looking to cut some of those mandatory programs,' said Gotwals. Read: How bad have 10 weeks of stock-market volatility been for your retirement fund? Maybe not as bad as you think. There was a sliver of good news about Social Security, which turns 90 in August: None of the experts I heard from believe benefits will be cut any time soon for current beneficiaries or people close to claiming Social Security. Nor did they think the president and Congress will raise the full retirement age from the current 67. But they agreed that changes to Social Security will be needed at some point before 2033, when the program's trust fund is projected to be depleted. Read: Opinion: A flat $1,660 monthly Social Security benefit for everyone? It's one proposed CBO remedy. Although Trump has vowed to protect Social Security, the conference analysts were outraged by the efforts of DOGE to cut the Social Security workforce by roughly 12% and to close or merge offices. About 40 field offices have lost at least 25% of their staff, and others have seen even larger workforce reductions, according to NPR. 'If this is protecting the program, what does it look like when they're not protecting a program?' asked National Council on Aging Chief Executive Ramsey Alwin. These and likely future cutbacks to customer service, the experts said, will pose worsening problems for people who need assistance from the Social Security Administration or who are just looking to receive benefits they're due. 'Now some people have to drive five or six hours to go to a Social Security office, and you need an appointment,' said Ryann Hill, founder and CEO of Indigo Hill Strategies, a government affairs, public policy and lobbying firm. 'There has already been a longstanding customer-service crisis at Social Security, following decades of underfunding of its operating budget,' said Rebecca Vallas, CEO of the National Academy of Social Insurance, an organization made up of experts on social insurance. Average call wait times at the Social Security Administration have more than doubled since August. That's happening as the number of calls has soared — from 6.5 million in November 2024 to 10.4 million in March. Before Trump began his second term, the average Social Security wait time for callers was an hour. Now it's an hour and 39 minutes. My check of the Social Security Administration's website on the morning of April 29 found there were 4,349 people on hold and 12,919 waiting for callbacks. Only 39% of callers are now able to reach a representative, down from 71% in May 2024. Wait times are typically shorter in the morning, later in the week and later in the month, the site advises. In mid-April, the Social Security Administration launched restrictions on what kind of help people can receive from the agency over the phone. The reason, officials say, is to crack down on fraud by people calling to apply for benefits. There's now a new phone verification system, although the administration hasn't offered many details. 'There's a lot of confusion about the antifraud verification,' Vallas said. And if the DOGE team winds up incorrectly putting your name into Social Security's 'death master file,' prepare for trouble. Landing on that list could harm your ability to get credit, Vallas said, because the Social Security Administration sends the names on its deceased list to consumer credit-reporting agencies. Another Trump administration change that's roiling advocates for older people is its rollback of President Joe Biden's clawback rules for people who received overpayments of their monthly Social Security benefits. Biden capped the clawbacks at 10% of benefits per month. The Trump administration initially said it would withhold 100% of benefits until the amount is repaid, but it then backed off and switched to 50% withholding, effective April 25. The experts at the OnAging conference were generally less concerned about big potential changes to Medicare than to Medicaid. 'Medicare is much more sacrosanct than Medicaid in many ways,' said David Lipschutz, co-director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. Lipschutz shared the comforting news that the Congressional Budget Office now says Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund won't be depleted until 2052 — 17 years later than it predicted a year ago. When it comes to Medicare, the chief immediate worry among experts concerns the nation's State Health Insurance Assistance Program, known as SHIP. SHIP provides free, nonpartisan assistance to state residents, explaining how Medicare works, the differences between traditional Medicare and private insurers' Medicare Advantage plans, Part D prescription-drug plans, Medigap policies, how to appeal Medicare denials and who qualifies for Medicare subsidy programs. SHIP isn't an expensive government program, relatively speaking: It has an annual budget of $55 million. But it was part of the Administration on Community Living, a federal agency the Trump administration is eliminating. Pieces of ACL are moving to three other agencies, but the administration hasn't yet said what the future holds for the SHIP program. 'We need people to help explain how Medicare works and to find the best programs for people,' said Gotwals. Unlike SHIP staffers, agents and brokers get paid by Medicare Advantage insurers and can sell plans that are in their own interest rather than the best interests of beneficiaries. Gotwals said a leaked draft budget from DOGE calls for eliminating federal funds for SHIP. If that happens, SHIP would only continue through contributions from states and community-based organizations. As of now, experts think SHIP will keep running through the upcoming Medicare enrollment period from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, 2025. Beyond that, however, is anyone's guess. The Medicare experts also said the Trump administration is very supportive of Medicare Advantage plans, which now have more members than traditional Medicare. In early April, the administration announced a higher-than-expected payment increase of 5.03% to Medicare Advantage plans for 2026. Trump, they noted, also halted Biden administration restrictions on the marketing of Medicare Advantage plans. 'We expect less emphasis on consumer protection in this administration,' Lipschutz said. He also told On Aging attendees that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may be working on proposals to make Medicare Advantage the default enrollment choice. Currently, traditional Medicare is the default. Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income Americans, which accounts for 12% of federal spending, is most likely to see quick and possibly devastating changes, the conference speakers said. 'We are in a critical moment now for the future of the Medicaid program,' said Lipschutz. 'This is crunch time.' If Medicaid funding is reduced significantly — we're likely to know how much by Memorial Day — people in long-term care and their family members could face serious financial challenges. That's because Medicaid, unlike Medicare, covers some expenses for nursing homes, assisted-living care and home care. Roughly half the money spent on long-term services and support is provided by Medicaid. The budget resolution passed recently by Republicans in Congress instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut spending by $880 billion over 10 years, and Medicaid looks like a target to achieve that goal. 'The Congressional Budget Office says it's impossible for the Trump administration and Congress to reach its spending targets without deep cuts to Medicaid,' said Lipschutz. He believes home- and community-based long-term-care services paid for by Medicaid are especially at risk. Read: $880 billion in Medicaid cuts would be 'devastating' for nursing homes and their residents Rural health clinics could also close, because they receive significant funds from Medicaid. Congress might cut funding to states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, too. Dental care will also likely take a hit, since it is often cut when money is tight. Reflecting the mood of the conference, American Society on Aging President and CEO Leanne Clark-Shirley told the audience: 'What felt safe and secure before now feels under threat. The landscape of public funding for aging services, research and health initiatives is changing by the day — sometimes by the hour.' 'In their last days, our parents changed their will': They left me $250,000, but gave my sister $1 million. What should I do? The S&P 500 is headed for its longest winning streak in more than 20 years. That doesn't mean the worst is over for stocks. 'Retirement is within my grasp': I'm 57, my 401(k) is dropping and I'm feeling anxious about a recession. What can I do? 'She's kept him afloat': I'm 78 and leaving my daughter, 41, my life savings, but her partner is a mooch. How can I protect her? 'Money means nothing to my wealthy clients': My coworkers step on each other to get ahead. How do I create a nontoxic culture at work?
The Independent
24-02-2025
- Health
- The Independent
The quest to extend human life is not new – it's fraught with moral peril
'Who wants to live forever?' Freddie Mercury mournfully asks in Queen's 1986 song of the same name. The answer: Quite a few people – so much so that life extension has long been a cottage industry. As a physician and scholar in the medical humanities, I've found the quest to expand the human lifespan both fascinating and fraught with moral peril. During the 1970s and 80s, for example, The Merv Griffin Show featured one guest 32 times – life extension expert Durk Pearson, who generated more fan mail than any guest except Elizabeth Taylor. In 1982, he and his partner, Sandy Shaw, published the book 'Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach,' which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and sold over 2 million copies. One specific recommendation involved taking choline and vitamin B5 in order to reduce cognitive decline, combat high blood pressure and reduce the buildup of toxic metabolic byproducts. Last year, Pearson died at 82, and Shaw died in 2022 at 79. No one can say for sure whether these life extension experts died sooner or later than they would have had they eschewed many of these supplements and instead simply exercised and ate a balanced diet. But I can say that they did not live much longer than many similarly well-off people in their cohort. Still, their dream of staying forever young is alive and well. Consider tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson's 'Project Blueprint,' a life-extension effort that inspired the 2025 Netflix documentary 'Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.' His program has included building a home laboratory, taking more than 100 pills each day and undergoing blood plasma transfusions, at least one of which came from his son. And Johnson is not alone. Among the big names investing big bucks to prolong their lives are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page, and Oracle's Larry Ellison. One approach involves taking senolytics – drugs that target cells that may drive the aging process, though more research is needed to determine their safety and efficacy. Another is human growth hormone, which has long been touted as an anti-aging mechanism in ad campaigns that feature remarkably fit older people. ('How does this 69-year-old doctor have the body of a 30-year-old?' reads one web ad). These billionaires may reason that, because of their wealth, they have more to live for than ordinary folks. They may also share more prosaic motivations, such as a fear of growing old and dying. But underlying such desires is an equally important ethical – and, for some, spiritual – reality. Is it a good thing, morally speaking, to wish to live forever? Might there be aspects of aging and even death that are both good for the world and good for individuals? Cicero's 'On Aging' offers some insights. In fact, the ancient Roman statesman and philosopher noted that writing about it helped him to find peace with the vexations of growing old. In the text, Cicero outlines and responds to four common complaints about aging: It takes us away from managing our affairs, impairs bodily vigor, deprives us of sensual gratifications and brings us to the verge of death. To the charge that aging takes us away from managing our affairs, Cicero asks us to imagine a ship. Only the young climb the masts, run to and fro on the gangways, and bail the hold. But it is among the older and more experienced members of the crew that we find the captain who commands the ship. Rome's supreme council was called the Senate, from the Latin for 'elder,' and it is to those rich in years that we look most often for wisdom. As to whether aging impairs bodily vigor, Cicero claimed that strength and speed are less related to age than discipline. Many older people who take care of themselves are in better shape than the young, and he gives examples of people who maintained their vigor well into their later years. He argued that those who remain physically fit do a great deal to sustain their mental powers, a notion supported by modern science. Cicero reminds readers that these same pleasures of eating and drinking often lead people astray. Instead, people, as they age, can better appreciate the pleasures of mind and character. A great dinner becomes characterized less by what's on the plate or the attractiveness of a dining partner than the quality of conversation and fellowship. While death remains an inevitable consequence of aging, Cicero distinguishes between quality and quantity of life. He writes that it is better to live well than to live long, and for those who are living well, death appears as natural as birth. Those who want to live forever have forgotten their place in the cosmos, which does not revolve around any single person or even species. Those of a more spiritual bent might find themselves drawn to the Scottish poet George MacDonald, who wrote: 'Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.' What if the dreams of the life extension gurus were realized? Would the world be a better place? Would the extra good that a longer-lived Einstein could have accomplished be balanced or even exceeded by the harm of a Stalin who remained healthy and vigorous for decades beyond his death? At some point, preserving indefinitely the lives of those now living would mean less room for those who do not yet exist. Pearson and Shaw appeared on many other television programs in the 1970s and 1980s. During one such segment on 'The Mike Douglas Show,' Pearson declared: 'By the time you are 60, your immune function is perhaps one-fifth what it was when you were younger. Yet you can achieve a remarkable restoration simply by taking nutrients that you can get at a pharmacy or health food store.' For Pearson, life extension was a biomedical challenge, an effort more centered on engineering the self rather than the world. Yet I would argue that the real challenge in human life is not to live longer, but to help others; adding extra years should be seen not as the goal but a byproduct of the pursuit of goodness. In the words of Susan B. Anthony: 'The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball – the further I am rolled, the more I gain.'
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The quest to extend human life is both fascinating and fraught with moral peril
'Who wants to live forever?' Freddie Mercury mournfully asks in Queen's 1986 song of the same name. The answer: Quite a few people – so much so that life extension has long been a cottage industry. As a physician and scholar in the medical humanities, I've found the quest to expand the human lifespan both fascinating and fraught with moral peril. During the 1970s and 80s, for example, The Merv Griffin Show featured one guest 32 times – life extension expert Durk Pearson, who generated more fan mail than any guest except Elizabeth Taylor. In 1982, he and his partner, Sandy Shaw, published the book 'Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach,' which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and sold over 2 million copies. One specific recommendation involved taking choline and vitamin B5 in order to reduce cognitive decline, combat high blood pressure and reduce the buildup of toxic metabolic byproducts. Last year, Pearson died at 82, and Shaw died in 2022 at 79. No one can say for sure whether these life extension experts died sooner or later than they would have had they eschewed many of these supplements and instead simply exercised and ate a balanced diet. But I can say that they did not live much longer than many similarly well-off people in their cohort. Still, their dream of staying forever young is alive and well. Consider tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson's 'Project Blueprint,' a life-extension effort that inspired the 2025 Netflix documentary 'Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.' His program has included building a home laboratory, taking more than 100 pills each day and undergoing blood plasma transfusions, at least one of which came from his son. And Johnson is not alone. Among the big names investing big bucks to prolong their lives are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page, and Oracle's Larry Ellison. One approach involves taking senolytics – drugs that target cells that may drive the aging process, though more research is needed to determine their safety and efficacy. Another is human growth hormone, which has long been touted as an anti-aging mechanism in ad campaigns that feature remarkably fit older people. ('How does this 69-year-old doctor have the body of a 30-year-old?' reads one web ad). These billionaires may reason that, because of their wealth, they have more to live for than ordinary folks. They may also share more prosaic motivations, such as a fear of growing old and dying. But underlying such desires is an equally important ethical – and, for some, spiritual – reality. Is it a good thing, morally speaking, to wish to live forever? Might there be aspects of aging and even death that are both good for the world and good for individuals? Cicero's 'On Aging' offers some insights. In fact, the ancient Roman statesman and philosopher noted that writing about it helped him to find peace with the vexations of growing old. In the text, Cicero outlines and responds to four common complaints about aging: It takes us away from managing our affairs, impairs bodily vigor, deprives us of sensual gratifications and brings us to the verge of death. To the charge that aging takes us away from managing our affairs, Cicero asks us to imagine a ship. Only the young climb the masts, run to and fro on the gangways, and bail the hold. But it is among the older and more experienced members of the crew that we find the captain who commands the ship. Rome's supreme council was called the Senate, from the Latin for 'elder,' and it is to those rich in years that we look most often for wisdom. As to whether aging impairs bodily vigor, Cicero claimed that strength and speed are less related to age than discipline. Many older people who take care of themselves are in better shape than the young, and he gives examples of people who maintained their vigor well into their later years. He argued that those who remain physically fit do a great deal to sustain their mental powers, a notion supported by modern science. Cicero reminds readers that these same pleasures of eating and drinking often lead people astray. Instead, people, as they age, can better appreciate the pleasures of mind and character. A great dinner becomes characterized less by what's on the plate or the attractiveness of a dining partner than the quality of conversation and fellowship. While death remains an inevitable consequence of aging, Cicero distinguishes between quality and quantity of life. He writes that it is better to live well than to live long, and for those who are living well, death appears as natural as birth. Those who want to live forever have forgotten their place in the cosmos, which does not revolve around any single person or even species. Those of a more spiritual bent might find themselves drawn to the Scottish poet George MacDonald, who wrote: 'Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.' What if the dreams of the life extension gurus were realized? Would the world be a better place? Would the extra good that a longer-lived Einstein could have accomplished be balanced or even exceeded by the harm of a Stalin who remained healthy and vigorous for decades beyond his death? At some point, preserving indefinitely the lives of those now living would mean less room for those who do not yet exist. Pearson and Shaw appeared on many other television programs in the 1970s and 1980s. During one such segment on 'The Mike Douglas Show,' Pearson declared: 'By the time you are 60, your immune function is perhaps one-fifth what it was when you were younger. Yet you can achieve a remarkable restoration simply by taking nutrients that you can get at a pharmacy or health food store.' For Pearson, life extension was a biomedical challenge, an effort more centered on engineering the self rather than the world. Yet I would argue that the real challenge in human life is not to live longer, but to help others; adding extra years should be seen not as the goal but a byproduct of the pursuit of goodness. In the words of Susan B. Anthony: 'The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball – the further I am rolled, the more I gain.' This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Richard Gunderman, Indiana University Read more: How midlife became a crisis How old would you want to be in heaven? What the Voyager space probes can teach humanity about immortality and legacy as they sail through space for trillions of years Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
