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4 Ways to Include a Home in Your Estate Plans
Tweet Share on Facebook August 14, 2012 CommentFor financial and emotional reasons, our homes often are the most valuable asset we own. Buying a home, making it your own, and enduring the ritual of paying down a mortgage are significant life events. Homes play prominent roles in our later lives as well, and are a core source of wealth and a financial safety net for millions of retirees.
[See 10 Ways Your Home Can Pay You Money.]
For those able to preserve this asset throughout their lives, homes also play an important part in how people think about their legacy and estate plans. Yet for all the work we do to acquire and maintain our homes, we often don't devote very much time to figuring out the best ways to pass on this asset to our heirs.
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Education: A Predictor of Longer Life
Tweet Share on Facebook August 13, 2012 CommentIf you want to know how long you will live, you might stop fretting over genetics and family history and instead look at your educational achievements. Education is certainly not the only variable associated with longer lives, but it may be the most powerful.
[See Top 10 U.S. Places for Healthcare.]
Recent study findings published in the journal Health Affairs present a remarkable update to the already considerable research showing education to be a powerful predictor of longer life spans.
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Health Reform Brings Standard Consumer Disclosures
Tweet Share on Facebook August 10, 2012 CommentBeginning next month, consumers will receive two new documents designed to make health insurance a lot clearer than ever before. By standardizing what health plans say about their policies and the language they use to say it, health care reform planners hope to usher in substantial improvements in public understanding of health coverage.
One document is called the Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC). As painstakingly developed, vetted, and approved by federal bureaucrats, the SBC must be provided to most people trying to renew or obtain health insurance.
It takes effect September 23, in time for the fall open enrollment period common to many health plans. The SBC will be up to eight pages long (or four pages printed on each side of the page) and use at least 12-point type, meaning that no "fine print" will be allowed. People who receive it electronically can also request a free paper version if they choose.
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Longevity: Make It For Better, Not Worse
Tweet Share on Facebook August 8, 2012 CommentOlder Americans are paying attention to the steady stream of research findings and stories about impressive gains in longevity.
In particular, we have a pretty accurate view of the increases achieved in average life spans, according to the sixth biennial study of longevity sponsored by the Society of Actuaries (SOA).
Ask Americans age 65 and older how much longer they expect to live, and you're likely to get a fairly accurate response, the SOA reports. "By age 65, U.S. males in average health have a 40 percent chance of living to age 85 and females more than a 50 percent chance," the report says, and "the survivor of a 65-year-old couple is more than 70 percent likely to reach 85."
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Here are the Best Places to Live—in 2032
Tweet Share on Facebook August 7, 2012 CommentOne of the few truly fun things about contemplating retirement is dreaming about where you might want to live. Before the tough financial, family, and lifestyle decisions must be made, we can spend at least some time musing about dream homes and locales. These decisions will be made in the future, of course. So what better rose-colored guide could there be than a set of rankings geared to predict the best places to live in the United States in 20 years?
[In Pictures: The Best U.S. States to Live in 2032.]
Dan Witters, research director of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, followed this logic in rating different states and regions of the country using a series of 13 measures of personal well-being that are based on extensive national polling efforts. The measures reflect, to a large degree, how people in the area feel about themselves and their communities. They were selected because they also have value in predicting the future appeal and quality of life in an area. The Well-Being Index is a partnership between the Gallup polling organization and Healthways, a wellness services firm based in Tennessee, south of Nashville.
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10 Things Aging Americans Want
Tweet Share on Facebook August 6, 2012 CommentAt a time when political friction is great and resources are not, expecting miraculous breakthrough solutions to our problems is not only unrealistic but counterproductive. Instead, the best way to "think big" may just be to "go small," by focusing on specific and relatively affordable changes.
[See 10 Places to Retire on Social Security Alone.]
Here are 10 improvements that would clearly improve the quality of life for millions and millions of older Americans. They do not cost a fortune and, in fact, can help reduce the expense burden on seniors and stressed-out government budgets. Unfortunately, with one or two exceptions, these improvements are not part of any widespread public or election-year debates about the country's future needs. They should be.
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Health Reform All Dressed Up With Nowhere to Go
Tweet Share on Facebook August 3, 2012 CommentThe nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is the closest thing Washington has to an official scorekeeper of government finances. Its regular budget reports are waved aloft by Republicans and Democrats alike, usually to cite some numbers (often out of context) to prove a point. Thus it's been with the CBO's excruciatingly fair-minded reports on Obamacare.
When the CBO evaluates the budget impact of a piece of legislation, the process is known as "scoring." During the contentious debate over the law in 2009 and 2010, the CBO's scoring efforts carried a lot of weight. The agency concluded the law would not make federal deficits worse, but actually lower them over time. There were howls, as there always are over CBO findings from those who disagree with them. And the agency does have to adhere to some rules for evaluating budget issues that don't make sense in the real world. But the CBO is largely viewed as an honest broker in what are devilishly complex matters.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in June upheld the law's constitutionality. While the court upheld the law, it freed states from compliance with one of its major provisions—an extensive expansion of Medicaid to pay for health services to millions of low-income Americans without health insurance.
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Provo, Utah Tops Best Cities for Successful Aging List
Tweet Share on Facebook August 1, 2012 CommentUsing nearly 80 factual indicators, a new study has evaluated the nation's 359 largest metropolitan areas and ranked them as the best places to age. Cities in the Midwest and Northeast fared well compared to traditional retirement sites in the South and West, researchers at the Milken Institute found.
That's in large measure because the study's indicators went far beyond climate and lifestyle amenities to include urban infrastructure, civic amenities, and measures of both physical and mental well-being. College towns in particular stood out as satisfying places for older residents. Such towns offer extensive learning opportunities for older residents and usually feature high-quality healthcare facilities as well.
