A ‘chained CPI’ would mean lower cost-of-living raises for seniors.
Weighing a Medicare age hike
Raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 may be off the table for now, but the idea will resurface as budget pressures grow.
Medicare coverage deadline: This Friday
Medicare’s open-enrollment period, when the 49 million Americans who use the program can make changes to their 2013 coverage, is about to come to a close – for most beneficiaries and their families, the deadline for alterations is midnight on Friday, Dec. 7.
Finding safer cars for older drivers
The car-key debate can be a thorny source of friction in families where the elderly parents are still healthy and active. While self-aware seniors will usually admit that their reaction times and sensory acuteness aren’t what they were in their prime, they’re seldom willing to risk forfeiting the independence that comes with being able to drive on their own from place to place.
A Web tool can help elderly drivers–your parents, perhaps?– zero in on models with the right “assistive features.”
Is too much running bad for boomers?
I have great respect for the midlife athletes I know, so I’m not deriving any schadenfreude from Kevin Helliker’s article from Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, One Running Shoe in the Grave. Helliker’s thesis: While running, like all forms of cardiovascular exercise, is undoubtedly beneficial to boomers, doing too much of it essentially erases many of the health benefits . . . New research suggests that over-50 athletes’ health can suffer if they run too far or too fast.
What Boomers won’t do with their phones
It’s been a while since cell-phone obsession was something that separated the middle-aged from the young. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reports that more than 85% of adults age 50 to 64 now own mobile phones, and about a third own smartphones. Even those with, er, dumb phones are getting more adventurous about how they use them, according to a Pew study released this week.
Women face long-term care price hike
For most of recent history, American women have been living longer than men – and now it’s going to cost them more. As the Wall Street Journal’s Kelly Greene reports, the insurance industry, which up until now has charged men and women the same prices for long-term care coverage, is beginning to factor women’s longevity into their underwriting.
Insurers, citing women’s longevity, are boosting premiums for policies that cover nursing care and assisted living.
Elder-care costs, state-by-state
MetLife Mature Market Institute has now published its annual survey of nursing home, assisted living, and other elder-care costs, and, as always, it’s valuable reading for anyone who’s nearing their own retirement, or helping older relatives navigate theirs. Here are a few points worth pondering: “Should we move Mom to Shreveport?”
