Posted on April 21, 2006 by Jason
The Daily Advertiser, April 21st, 2006
At a time when our lawmakers in Baton Rouge are under enormous pressure
to adequately fund so many critical state programs, the last thing we
needed to see from President Bush’s proposed federal budget was a
reduction in key Medicaid funding that helps ensure Louisiana’s most
vulnerable frail, elderly and disabled nursing home residents continue
to receive quality care.
Unfortunately, this is precisely what has happened.
A new analysis of the federal budget recently released by the
accounting firm BDO Seidman and the American Health Care Association
(AHCA), in Washington, D.C., finds Louisiana’s Medicaid-funded nursing
home care would be cut by an estimated $70.2 million in the year ahead.
This represents the ninth highest cut of all states analyzed. On a
per patient, per day basis – the best way to assess how this cut would
negatively impact care locally – this reduction would amount to
approximately $9.
Ongoing efforts to provide for the essential
complex care needs of our oldest, sickest, least ambulatory residents
would be severely hobbled.
Read more…
Posted on April 21, 2006 by Jason
Injuries from lawn mowing increase nationwide
and by age
SeniorJournal.com, April 20th, 2006
How often have we read that the risk of some dreaded problem,
like heart disease or cancer, “increases with age?” Well, now you can
add lawnmower injuries. The author of a new study says, “Lawnmower
injuries increase with age, with peaks in persons older than 59 years.”
The study of such accidents in 2004, found senior citizens 60 to 69 had
the most push mover injuries and those 70 and older had the most riding
mower injuries. The author does, however, have some ideas on how to
better your odds.
The 60- to 69-year age group also had the second
highest hospitalization rate due to lawnmower injuries between 1996 and
2003. Only one study published in the last 15 years noted the high
incidence of lawnmower injuries among seniors.
Children younger than 15 also had a substantial
number of injuries. Individuals in the 15- to 19-year age group had the
highest rate of hospitalizations caused by lawnmower injuries from 1996
through 2003
Read more…
Posted on April 20, 2006 by Jason
Even healthy companies are freezing or eliminating
traditional pensions. Here’s how to figure out if it could happen where
you work
Business Week, April 21st, 2006
If you’re still depending on a traditional pension, it’s time to put
yourself on a “pension watch.” In the last few months, IBM (IBM), Unisys (UIS), Verizon (VZ), and General Motors (GM), among others, have announced that they’re freezing their traditional “defined benefit” pension plans.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), an agency
created by the federal government to pay pensions to employees of
companies whose plans have terminated, explains that there are several
ways to freeze a plan — by closing it to new entrants, freezing
benefits for only some of the employees, or in the case of a “hard
freeze,” halting accrual of pension benefits based on either job tenure
or salary increases.
But any way you look at it, freezes, plus
actual pension plan terminations that occur when companies merge or go
out of business, pose a threat to the expectation that millions of
future retirees will be able to count on receiving some or all of the
guaranteed pension that they expected.
Read more…
Posted on April 20, 2006 by Jason
National Center for Policy Analysis, April 21st, 2006
Members of Congress occasionally lose elections, but they never lose
retirement and health benefits that most Americans can only envy, says
the Associated Press (AP).
For example:
- A lawmaker who retires at 60 after just 12 years in office can
count on receiving an immediate pension of $25,000 a year and lifetime
benefits that could total more than $800,000. That doesn’t include
401(k) benefits.
- And any member who lasts five years in office also can get
taxpayer-subsidized health care until he or she reaches Medicare age.
Congressional pensions tend to be far more generous than those offered in the private sector, says the AP:
Read more…
Posted on April 19, 2006 by Jason
Pharmacy Benefit
Managers see Medicare saving $23 billion in 5 years
SeniorJournal.com, April 18th, 2006
Senior citizens and the Medicare
Part D program could potentially save more than $23 billion dollars over
the next five years as at least 14 major brand-name drugs commonly used
by seniors are slated to become available in generic form. Standing in
the way, however, is the powerful lobby for the pharmaceutical companies
that make name-brand drugs.
This analysis comes from an association
representing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which administer
prescription drug plans for more than 200 million Americans with health
coverage provided through small businesses, Fortune 500 employers,
health insurers, labor unions, and Medicare Part D.
The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA)
warned that these savings are at risk in the coming years as special
interest groups continue efforts aimed at undermining generic
alternatives, both in public programs and the commercial marketplace.
Read more…
Posted on April 19, 2006 by Jason
Four methods to help make up for lost time
Morningstar.com, April 17th, 2006
In last week’s column, I presented seven practical steps
to help late-starting investors improve their chances of achieving a
sizable nest egg to help with retirement needs. In this week’s
installment, I’ll focus on a few more specific investment strategies to
help you on your way toward retirement security.
1. Max out your retirement accounts.
It may seem obvious, but saving and investing larger sums of money over
time is the surest way to meet your financial goals. If your employer
offers a 401(k) or 403(b) plan with decent investment options, you
should try to maximize your contribution to it. The maximum
contribution for 2006 is $15,000, and investors over age 50 can now
contribute $5,000 per year more in “catch up” contributions. If these
amounts are out of reach for you, try to contribute the amount you need
to take full advantage of employer-sponsored matching programs, as this
can be a great way to maximize your investment.
Read more…
Posted on April 18, 2006 by Jason
Reuters, April 17th, 2006
The pension funds of S&P 500 companies, which provide income for
thousands of U.S. retirees, profited from better investments and more
company contributions last year but were still about 10 percent
underfunded, an analyst said on Monday.
At the end of 2005,
pension plans for companies in the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500
index <.SPX> were 90 percent funded, with an underfunded
liability of $145 billion, according to Credit Suisse accounting
analyst David Zion.
That represented an improvement from the $154 billion underfunded balance S&P companies carried at the end of 2004.
“It was the third year in a row where the health of the pension plans
improved,” Zion said in a research note. “Of course, if interest rates
continue to go up and if the stock market keeps going up, the plans
will get even healthier this year.”
Read more…
Posted on April 14, 2006 by Jason
The New York Times, April 16th, 2006
For America’s baby boomers, a generation weaned on Jack LaLanne, shaped by
Jane Fonda videos and sculpted in the modern-day gym, too much of a good thing
has consequences.
Encouraged by doctors to continue to exercise three to five times a week for
their health, a legion of running, swimming and biking boomers are flouting the
conventional limits of the middle-aged body’s abilities, and filling the
nation’s operating rooms and orthopedists’ offices in the process.
They need knee and hip replacements, surgery for cartilage and ligament
damage, and treatment for tendinitis, arthritis,
bursitis and stress fractures. The phenomenon even has a name in medical
circles: boomeritis.
“Boomers are the first generation that grew up exercising, and the first that
expects, indeed demands, that they be able to exercise into their 70′s,” said
Dr. Nicholas A. DiNubile, a Philadelphia-area orthopedic surgeon, who coined and
trademarked the term boomeritis.
Read more…
Posted on April 13, 2006 by Jason
Baltimore Sun, April 12th, 2006
Jake Miller, 74, sat down yesterday at a table at the Lansdowne
Baltimore Highlands Senior Center, spreading before him a sheaf of
printouts showing all the medications he had gotten in the past year
and how much he had paid. He estimated that he spends about $500 a
month to fill 11 prescriptions.
Across the table counselor Omalara Agbaje of My Medicare Matters
typed the prescriptions into a laptop, then showed Miller how much he
would pay under different versions of the new Medicare prescription
program.
“You pay $130 for Nexium,” Agbaje said, pointing at her screen. “Guess what? With this plan, it’s $23.”
Miller signed up, along with another dozen or so at yesterday’s
enrollment event. Federal, state and local officials are pushing to get
more seniors enrolled by May 15.
After the deadline, beneficiaries will pay a penalty of a 1
percent increase in premiums for each month delayed. For example, if a
person delayed enrolling for 12 months, his premiums would go up 12
percent.
Read more…
Posted on April 12, 2006 by Jason
U.S. News & World Report, April 11th, 2006
The weather is warming up, but watch out—your pension could be
frozen. A pension freeze means that the assets already in your plan
will be paid out when you retire or leave the company, but new benefits
do not accrue as you stay on the job. In some cases pensions are closed
only to new employees, but in others they are frozen for some or all
existing employees, too. Legally, companies can freeze pensions at any
time, unless the move violates a collective bargaining agreement with a
union.
Many companies introduce a 401(k) plan or enhance their existing one
to replace a defined-benefit pension plan. “Recent research has found
that when a traditional pension is frozen, many workers in the pension
are unlikely to get an equal benefit value contributed to their 401(k)
plan,” says Jack VanDerhei, a Temple University professor and a fellow
at the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). “Each case is
different, but it’s clear that people currently working should factor
into their retirement planning the long-term trend away from
traditional defined-benefit pensions toward 401(k)-type plans.”
Read more…
