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The Enthusiasts

By Dr. Bill Thomas, ChangingAging.org on April 22, 2012

The greater disabilities community is clearly in the midst of a high-pressure, national crisis. Thus far in 2012, I have witnessed Disabilities Services in the State of Alabama take arbitrary across-the-board cuts of 9%. Just across the state line, Georgia is currently struggling to meet the demands of the Olmstead Decree and here in Florida, we have a Waitlist of more than 21,000 individuals who receive absolutely no services or supports. Health care reform is critically needed to address and mitigate access to service inequities for people with developmental disabilities.

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There has been plenty of reporting on the increasing inequality of wealth distribution between the top one percent of the population and the 99 percent of the rest of us. The disparity is breathtaking. By most measurements, the top .01 percent of the population earn an average of something like $27 million per household per year while the average of everyone else is $31,244.

So I’m sitting here on a Sunday afternoon curious about Time Goes By readers, wondering how well we all get by. What percentage of our incomes derive from Social Security and how difficult is it to match our money to monthly requirements.

For me, Social Security provides 86.3 percent of income.

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In my last column, I attempted to demystify probate. If I succeeded at all, you no longer think of probate as something to fear.

In the comments to my probate post, people continued to wonder whether they should have a will or trust. I think people should be more concerned about having a plan.

Lawyers call it an estate plan for a reason. The plan comes first. The documents put the plan into action. In order to plan, we need to know about the three ways that property passes at death.

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It looks like more of our elderly are dying at home rather than in the hospital according to the CDC. Their statistics for nursing home deaths edged slightly higher however.

Since 1989 the percentage of deaths in hospitals for those 85 and up decreased from 40% to 29% while those dying at home increased from 12% to 19%. Around 40% of that population dies in some sort of long term care facility. The idea that hospitals are not worthy places to die seems to be taking hold.

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Over the past months, several themes keep recurring on my blog. One repeated topic is the key way that diet and exercise affect our health and well-being. Another – and the focus of today’s post – is the potential harm that often results from our increasing tendency to overmedicate ourselves.

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Some of us have given up on life, lonesome, quietly watching life go by. I won’t bore you with statistics, but will just say that it’s a fact that making new friends does, on balance, make people live longer. So join the fun. Your life may depend on it!

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