Posted on December 28, 2005 by Steve
Yahoo News, December 27th, 2005
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Simple exercises conducted on resistance
training machines lead to a variety of favorable effects on muscle
strength and performance in the elderly, Australian researchers report.
Moreover, they say, even relatively low-level workouts lead to significant improvement.
As investigator Dr. Dennis R. Taaffe told Reuters Health, “only a
modest amount of resistance exercise, performed on a regular basis, is
required to enhance muscle strength and physical performance in older
adults, which may assist in the prevention of disability and thereby
prolong independence.”
Taaffe, at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, and Daniel A.
Galvao of Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, looked into whether a
single-set or three-set exercise regimen improved physical function in
28 women and men between 65 and 78 years of age.
Read more…
Posted on December 28, 2005 by Steve
USA Today, December 28th, 2005
The trend by companies to freeze or end their employee pension plans
may have a big impact on baby boomers now on the cusp of retirement.
Boomers with pension plans have counted on monthly retirement checks
at the end of their career, but more employers are ending their plans
or halting future benefit accruals. Those at greatest risk include
boomers in their late 40s and early 50s, who are still at least a
decade from retirement but too old to save enough to make up the
difference in their pension benefits.
An August survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers showed that nearly half
of companies that expect to change their pension plans in the next year
are considering freezing benefits for all employees. More than a third
that offered pensions have already pared back these benefits over the
past three years.
“This will definitely be a problem for baby boomers,” says Karen
Friedman at the Pension Rights Center. “You’ve been at a company under
the plan and worked for years with that expectation, and then it’s
taken away.”
Read more…
Posted on December 14, 2005 by Steve
The Cincinatti Enquirer, December 10th, 2005
WASHINGTON – Juanita and Joe Sanders of St. Louis were trying to
figure out how to pay for a new roof two years ago when their son
suggested a reverse mortgage.
Reverse mortgages allow cash-strapped seniors to draw
equity out of their homes to meet financial obligations. The Sanderses
- Juanita is 81 and Joe is 97 – were sold on the idea they could stay
in the home they’ve owned since 1953 and not make any payments.
“The equity is there as a line of credit. It stays
right there until I need it. It keeps me carefree, not a worry,” said
Juanita Sanders.
The Sanders’ reverse mortgage is among 158,000 that the
Federal Housing Administration has insured since 1989. The program has
become so popular – the number of reverse mortgages more than doubled
from 2003 to 2005 – that Congress earlier this year raised the cap on
FHA-insured reverse mortgages, from $150,000 to $250,000.
Read more…
Posted on December 11, 2005 by Steve
NY Times, December 9th, 2005
TACOMA, Wash. – As one of more than two million Americans
who rushed to a courthouse this year to file for bankruptcy before a
tough new law took effect, Laura Fogle is glad for her chance at a
fresh start. A nurse and single mother of two, she blames her use of
credit cards after cancer surgery for falling into deep debt.
Ms. Fogle is broke, and may
not seem to be the kind of person to whom banks would want to offer
credit cards. But she said she had no sooner filed for bankruptcy, and
sworn off plastic, than she was hit with a flurry of solicitations from
major banks.
“Every day, I get at least two or three new credit
card offers – Citibank, MasterCard, you name it – they want to give me
a credit card, at pretty high interest rates,” said Ms. Fogle, who is
41 and lives here. “I’ve got a stack of these things on my table. It’s
tempting, but I’ve sworn them off.”
Read more…
Posted on December 11, 2005 by Steve
NY Times, December 11th, 2005
SINCE 1983, the city of Duluth, Minn., has been promising free
lifetime health care to all of its retired workers, their spouses and
their children up to age 26. No one really knew how much it would cost.
Three years ago, the city decided to find out.
It took an actuary about
three months to identify all the past and current city workers who
qualified for the benefits. She tallied their data by age, sex,
previous insurance claims and other factors. Then she estimated how
much it would cost to provide free lifetime care to such a group.
The total came to about $178 million, or more than double the city’s operating budget. And the bill was growing.
“Then
we knew we were looking down the barrel of a pretty high-caliber
weapon,” said Gary Meier, Duluth’s human resources manager, who
attended the meeting where the actuary presented her findings.
Mayor
Herb Bergson was more direct. “We can’t pay for it,” he said in a
recent interview. “The city isn’t going to function because it’s just
going to be in the health care business.”
Read more…
Posted on December 9, 2005 by Steve
Rismedia, December 8th, 2006
The nation’s housing market is in a
“perilous position” that could slow the broader economy, but it is
unlikely that a drop in home prices will prompt a recession, according
to the latest assessment of the economy from the UCLA Anderson
Forecast.
In their quarterly economic forecast to be released today, the UCLA
economists said that a slowdown in home sales and single-family home
construction is a sign that the housing market may be on a decline.
The Anderson Forecast, one of the state’s most respected panels of
economists, has been predicting a housing slowdown for the past couple
of years, even as housing prices have skyrocketed.
Earlier this year, the forecast predicted that the slowdown would
occur in mid-2005. In today’s report, the economists have pushed their
prediction to early 2006.
Read more…
Posted on December 2, 2005 by Steve
The New York Times, November 11th, 2005
Enrollment in the new Medicare drug benefit begins in three days, but
even with President Bush hailing the plan on Saturday as ”the greatest
advance in health care for seniors” in 40 years, large numbers of
older Americans appear to be overwhelmed and confused by the choices
they will…
Read more…
