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Blockbuster Drugs That Will Go Generic Soon
Tweet Share on Facebook April 29, 2011 Comment (46)Healthcare costs have been rising faster than overall prices, but some prescription-drug relief is on the way. Over the next few years, an abnormally large number of blockbuster drugs are scheduled to lose their patent protection, opening the doors to cheaper generic drugs.
Already, generics have become the dominant branch of the prescription-drug family. According to its annual study of U.S. medicine use, the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics recently reported that generics accounted for 78 percent of all prescriptions last year.
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10 Retirement Issues That Are Here to Stay
Tweet Share on Facebook April 27, 2011 Comment (8)It's impossible to know what tomorrow may bring. We don't know how much gasoline prices will rise, how the various Mideast peoples' movements will turn out, or whether Donald Trump will turn his presidential polling numbers into a new reality show. Wait—we may know how that last one turns out. But for the most part, we turn the page on each new day and wait to see what the sunrise brings.
Life is different in Retirement Land. Here, there is a lot more certainty in sniffing out the major issues that will confront retirees and people getting ready to retire. Regularly, a common group of core issues is studied, reported, blogged, and tweeted about—day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and, well, you get the picture.
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Why the iPad Appeals to Older Users
Tweet Share on Facebook April 25, 2011 CommentHannelore Jend left her German home in Darmstadt in 1949 and resettled in the Denver area with her husband, who was in the military. Now 88, she recently visited her old hometown without ever leaving her current home at the Balfour Retirement Community in Louisville, Colo. As part of a new program that teaches residents there how to use Apple iPads, Jend was able to see her home using Google Earth, a popular iPad app.
"I like to wander around," she says. "I like to travel, so this really was to me amazing." She says it has been so long since she visited Darmstadt that seeing her old neighborhood again was "just mind boggling."
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Why Seniors Should Embrace Higher Oil Prices
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2011 Comment (7)The pain of higher prices at the pump could be eased greatly for seniors if it also helps deliver a hefty annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security benefits in 2012.
In 2008, a big summer jump in fuel prices led to a third-quarter hike in consumer prices. Social Security uses third-quarter prices to set the following year's COLA, and the summer spike in oil prices also fueled a 5.8 percent COLA for 2009, the largest one-year rise in more than 25 years.
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Public in Denial About Cost of Fiscal Fix
Tweet Share on Facebook April 21, 2011 Comment (5)Here's a scary thought. What if the Republicans and Democrats, now snarling and hissing like two fiscal alley cats, are actually closer to agreeing with each other on spending, deficits, and taxes than they are with the public? A lot closer.
The two parties' plans for correcting the nation's structural budget deficits seem light years apart.
[See 7 Ways to Lower Your Medical Expenses.]
The Republican plan, already approved in the House, would starve all non-entitlement spending and sharply cut health spending by Medicaid and Medicare. Medicare, in particular, would cease its current form in 10 years, to be succeeded by a "premium subsidy" program (which Republicans try to maintain is not a voucher program). Taxes would not be raised.
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3 Steps to Turn Nest Eggs Into Retiree Income
Tweet Share on Facebook April 20, 2011 Comment (1)Turning your retirement savings into a flow of predictable income payments is, of course, essential to a successful retirement. It's also often one of the hardest and most overlooked tasks leading up to actually retiring.
There are three components to the job. Some experts may give them different names but they amount to Your Preparation, Your Buckets, and Your Investments.
[See 10 Best Places for Older Employees.]
Your Preparation
Review 10 or even 20 retirement books and the same preparation steps appear over and over again. Here are the primary ones common to most approaches:
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How the Budget Deficit Could Lead to Generational Warfare
Tweet Share on Facebook April 18, 2011 Comment (15)Today, the biggest fight over government spending and budget deficits clearly is between Republicans and Democrats. Future battles, however, may include a divisive fight between generations over who should pick up the tab for baby boomer retirement and medical expenses.
[See 10 Best Places for Older Employees.]
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the 2012 budget plan of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. Its $6 trillion whack at federal spending over the next 10 years is not expected to get far in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate. President Obama laid out his own $4 trillion in spending cuts, along with a partisan shout-out to the classic liberal traditional of maintaining social safety nets.
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10 Best Places for Older Employees
Tweet Share on Facebook April 15, 2011 Comment (2)Continuing to work past the traditional retirement age of 65 has ceased to be unusual and, in some circles, is now more the norm. In his new book, The Big Shift, Marc Freedman talks about how longevity gains have enabled us to create a new age between middle age and old age.
For many of us, this new period in our 60s and 70s will be spent working, either by choice or necessity. Freedman, the founder of Civic Ventures who has championed encore careers, envisions a blossoming of baby boomer social consciousness, with a flood of nonprofit ventures providing us a way to give back.
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Why Tax Rates are Low but Opposition Is High
Tweet Share on Facebook April 13, 2011 Comment (9)Republicans have waged a ferocious and largely successful battle against raising taxes. Democrats seem to be falling in line. Many have taken to calling for a tax overhaul—lowering tax rates but also ending tax loopholes—as the only politically safe way to raise revenues. Otherwise, the sentiment for closing the nation's budget deficits, in part through higher taxes, has been as tepid as the Tea Party has been hot.
Meanwhile, public attitudes about taxes and a look at tax rates tell a surprisingly different story. The American Enterprise Institute has issued a comprehensive look at public opinion polls showing Americans' attitudes toward all sorts of taxes during the past 75 years.
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5 Reasons You Need a Long-Term Care Plan
Tweet Share on Facebook April 11, 2011 Comment (8)Surviving to an old age is the dominant good-news story about aging. Improved medical care and better diet and exercise habits, particularly among higher-income seniors, are adding years to lives. This welcome trend, however, is running head-on into the harsh reality that even normally aging older Americans are likely to need expensive long-term care assistance. Few have money or plans for this likelihood.
[See 10 Ways to Boost Your Social Security Checks.]
Here are five compelling reasons for older people and their families to get serious about how they will deal with old-age care needs:
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The Best Life
Philip Moeller, contributing editor for U.S. News Money, writes about achieving success and happiness in older age. He also is a research fellow at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College.
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