Tag Archives: Boomers

Medicare (for all)

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We are slightly more than two weeks ‘til the midterms. Will the Democrats gain the House (and Senate), or will the Kavanaugh nomination drive Republicans to the polls in higher than usual numbers? Then, there are the myriad of issues sliding past the lips of candidates. One of them I’ve heard and care about is the term “Medicare for all.”

Despite continued opposition from almost every candidate on the right, Democrats recognize that voters do favor something more radical than President Obama’s plan for health insurance. While “Obamacare” is far from the ideal, all “the party of no” can come up with is continued cuts to Medicaid and even the specter that they’ll at some point gut Medicare.

If you look at polling, the landscape clearly shows that more than half of the country (and 70 percent of those polled who vote Democrat) want some form of single-payer healthcare, which is what Medicare is. More than half of America’s doctors also favor it. So why won’t our elected leaders do something about it?

I’ve written about passing my insurance exam and being licensed as a life/health agent in Maine. Last fall, I passed my CMS certification to sell Medicare. My first year representing Medicare Advantage plans found my sales to be minimal. But I was happy that I got to make this step forward as an agent. What I learned is that most people age 65 (or heading there fast) know little or nothing about Medicare. Worse, they don’t know how to maximize their healthcare benefit options. Continue reading →

Getting Older All the Time

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Certain writers have helped shape how I see the world. Some of them—James Kunstler, Barbara Ehrenreich, Neil Postman, Lewis Mumford—have allowed me to break free of many of the myths and even lies that frame the thinking of many in America. I’d add Susan Jacoby to that list.

The first time I read one of her books, it was The Age of American Unreason, a hard-hitting, nonfiction work that framed the dumbing down of America in a way that was systematic and understandable, but also well-researched, and not one that tilted at the usual suspects. As Jacoby describes it in the book, our problems are a result of “a virulent mixture of anti-rationalism and low expectations.” She was clear in the book that our state “of unreason” was also permanent, not temporary.

I apparently missed that she wrote a book about aging in America. Much like Ehrenreich (see her take down of “positive thinking”), Jacoby doesn’t pull any punches, or mince her words. Neither does she subscribe to the “happy, happy, joy, joy” school of self-help gibberish and positive affirmations as a blanket “cure all” for our national ills.

America is an aging nation. My home state, Maine, is the oldest of the 50 states. Our older population—persons who are 65 years or older—numbered nearly 40 million in 2009 (the latest year for which data is available). That’s 12.9 percent of the U.S. population, or about one in every eight Americans. By 2030, that number nearly doubles to 72.1 million, or more than twice what the number was in 2000. People who are 65+ will number one in five in 2030.

While aging gets acknowledged, it’s mainly communicated in a manner that’s false, couched in a host of magical ideas, like “60 is the new 40,” and the belief that the intersection of medicine and technology will solve all the attendant problems of people getting old in large numbers.

Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of The New Old Age is just the kind of book that everyone that believes the answer to aging is just around the corner should read—but I know they won’t. Jacoby’s book came out in 2011. I spent the past year managing a grant specific to aging in place, and Maine’s rapidly aging population. I received countless emails, had books recommended to me, and heard a great deal of poppycock, really, about the issue. Not once did I run across Jacoby’s book. I found it by “accident” at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, two weeks ago. Continue reading →