Salon.com > Seniors

More and more families moving in together

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:34:00 +0000

Struggling with the burden of debts and underemployment, a growing number of graduates in the U.S. are moving back in with their parents. Meanwhile, unable to afford independent retirement, seniors are moving into their children's family homes. Census bureau statistics show a 4 percent rise from last year in the number of multi-generational households: 4.3 million U.S. households now include a parent, a grandparent and a child.

The video below highlights the strength of this trend; housing developers are designing houses under the premise that a young person or grandparent will be moving back in. Watch below (via NewsFix):

Romney-Ryan Medicare: No love for students, seniors

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:00:00 +0000

With Election Day finally in sight, the last few weeks have been brimming with slogans, speeches, and sound bites. But while Republicans and Democrats are working from a similar playbook, there’s a gaping chasm between their competing visions of the social safety net, and the future of Medicare hangs in the balance. In short, the Republicans claim their voucher plan would reduce health care costs, but the truth is that the seniors who depend on Medicare would be forced to pay the price.

The policy clash boils down to a single notion: vouchers. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are proposing a voucher-based Medicare system—one in which seniors are given vouchers to trade for insurance plans on a national exchange or market. The value of these vouchers is capped at a specific value, with the aim of curbing rising health care costs. And in fact, it is completely true that the Romney-Ryan voucher system will reduce Medicare costs, as promised. But it will do so by pushing those expenses onto Medicare enrollees, by forcing them to pay more out of pocket to cover their medical expenses as health care costs rise. What the GOP is proposing, in other words, is not exactly cost-cutting, but rather cost-shifting from government to seniors. If the yearly national allowance of vouchers has expired and your heart begins to fail, well, at least take solace in the fact that Mr. Ryan’s plan lowers Medicare costs by 20 percent.

Dems silenced at Ryan’s rally

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 22:54:00 +0000

Newly minted vice presidential pick Paul Ryan will campaign in The Villages tomorrow, but don’t expect to see a Democratic counter rally at Florida's largest retirement community, thanks to what liberals there say is active persecution from the community’s right-wing ownership. The Villages has become a must-visit destination for Republican politicians, because, as a GOP official told Salon last month, “The road to Washington goes through Tallahassee -- you have to win Florida -- and the road to Tallahassee goes through the Villages.” With 60,000 registered voters, it’s no wonder Mitt Romney has already visited four times and Ryan is making it his first stop in the key swing state of Florida, where his Medicare plan will undoubtedly be a major issue.

Old folks: The next addicts?

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:46:00 +0000

Carol Aronberg’s drunkalogue is common: she grew up outside New York City in a privileged family full of drinkers; both her parents were alcoholics, and her father was a mean drunk whose verbal abuse damaged her self-esteem. Still, she went to college, got married, had kids and started a successful business. And then, eight years ago, her mother died, and Carol’s drinking blossomed, and she expanded her repertoire to include drugs. Finally, after three overdoses on booze and benzodiazepines and a pharmacopeia of other pills (“the 'Cets,” she calls them—Percocet, Fioricet, the combinations of painkiller or sedative with acetaminophen), she checked into rehab. Now she has 18 months clean and sober.

Here's the biggest difference between Aronberg's story and that of most alcoholics: She was 69 years old when she became an addict.

Aronberg is part of what some analysts have described as an approaching tidal wave of addiction in America: older adults and members of the baby-boom generation now in their late 40s to their mid-60s, who develop addiction and get sober late in life.