Public Policy & Aging E-Newsletter
Volume 6, Number 4, July 2012
This bimonthly e-newsletter highlights key developments and viewpoints in the field of aging policy from a wide variety of sources, including articles and reports circulating in the media, academy, think tanks, private sector, government and nonprofit organizations.
The goal of this email publication is to reach teachers, students, and citizens interested in aging-related issues, especially those who may not have sufficient access to policy information disseminated both in Washington and around the country.
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I. WHAT’S HAPPENING IN WASHINGTON?
A. U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Healthcare Reform Legislation: Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) is drawing attention to the law’s many provisions that affect the country’s aging population. GSA’s website offers a clearinghouse of reports and fact sheets explaining the expected changes to seniors’ insurance choices and costs — shedding light on aspects ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to the geriatric care workforce. To view these resources, including videos, click here.
B. HHS Announces New Alzheimer's Plan: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released an ambitious national plan to fight Alzheimer’s disease. The Secretary called for additional specific actions, including the funding of two major clinical trials, jumpstarted by the National Institutes of Health’s infusion of additional FY 2012 funds directed at Alzheimer’s disease; the development of new high-quality, up-to-date training and information for our nation’s clinicians; and a new public education campaign and website to help families and caregivers find the services and support they need. To help accelerate this urgent work, the President’s proposed FY 2013 budget provides a $100 million increase for efforts to combat Alzheimer’s disease.
C. Cost and Access Challenges: A Comparison of Experiences Between Uninsured and Privately Insured Adults Aged 55 to 64 with Seniors on Medicare: This Kaiser Family Foundation analysis looks at the difficulties uninsured people ages 55-64 have accessing and affording health care in 2010, and comparisons to insured near-seniors and seniors with Medicare. Four in ten of these near-seniors report having unmet health care needs or delaying treatment. Seniors on Medicare report problems accessing care at a significantly lower rate than uninsured near-seniors and at a similar rate to near-seniors with private insurance, after controlling for differences in demographics and health status.
II. WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND THE COUNTRY?
A. You've Earned a Say: AARP has launched a national conversation to help protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare for today's seniors and future generations. In addition to questionnaires and opportunities to share your ideas directly with your members of Congress and the presidential and congressional candidates, the website presents perspectives from leading experts on some of the more frequently mentioned policy options for reforming Social Security and Medicare.
B. Eliminating Social Services Block Grant Would Weaken Services for Vulnerable Children, Adults, and Disabled: The Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) is a uniquely flexible funding source that helps states meet the specialized needs of their most vulnerable populations, primarily low- and moderate-income children and people who are elderly or disabled. This Center or Budget and Policy Priorities brief discusses the House Ways and Means Committee vote to eliminate SSBG and the implications for states based on this decision. States are in no position to replace lost SSBG funds by increasing their own funding and have already imposed nearly $300 billion in spending cuts over the past five years.
C. Compare Cost of Care Across the United States: Research shows that about 70 percent of people age 65 or older will need long term care services at some point in their lifetime. This Genworth Financial interactive map can help families evaluate options to address the increasing cost of long term care. The map displays median cost of care for states and regions and compares costs across locations, therefore allowing individuals to calculate projected long term care costs. A smartphone application is also available.
III. THIS ISSUE'S MAJOR POLICY STORY: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
I was first introduced to the notion of "civic engagement" by my friend Marc Freedman who (with former Health, Education, and Welfare secretary John Gardner) was convinced that older women and men, sometimes embarking on encore careers, had considerable (albeit undervalued) expertise and talents to contribute to politics, social services, education, and volunteering--indeed to virtually every segment of American society. Since then, the idea has caught on because the notion of civic engagement serves to fill gaps in the interstices of post-modern society, particularly at the grassroots level. There are major university-based centers that focus on retooling and re-engaging older workers as well as ones that equip young citizens who want to get involved. There are countless books evaluating accomplishments and assessing research needs, including a fine collection of essays edited by our own Greg O'Neill. To an historian, the idea of "civic engagement" is not entirely novel; it dates back at least to Alexis de Tocqueville, who recognized that Americans would come together for short-term projects in atomistic Jacksonian America and then revert to their individualistic ways. For its past and present, for experiences here and abroad, it seems appropriate to look at "civic engagement" through the policy lens offered by the articles below.
-Andy Achenbaum
A. The Aging Network’s Volunteer Collaborative: On May 16th, the Administration on Aging and its partners launched a new online resource center and a goal of achieving 1 million volunteers by 2015. As the central place for the coordination, integration, and sharing of effective practices and tools across the Aging Services Network, the resource center will provide the latest and best from the field of volunteering by older adults and include specialized information to assure that volunteers are representative of their communities across socio-economic and culturally diverse groups.
B. The Health Benefits of Volunteering for Older Americans: A Review of Recent Research: According to data from the Corporation for National and Community Service, 18.7 million older adults–more than a quarter of those 55 and older–contributed on average more than three billion hours of service in their communities per year between 2008 and 2010. This Corporation for National and Community Service fact sheet explains that older adults who volunteer typically volunteer more hours in a year than other age groups.
C. Age Disparities in Unemployment and Reemployment during the Great Recession and Recovery: As unemployment surged during the Great Recession and subsequent recovery, older workers were less likely than their younger counterparts to lose their jobs. However, unemployed workers in their fifties were about a fifth less likely than those age 25 to 34 to become reemployed between 2008 and 2011, and they experienced steep wage losses. This Urban Institute brief examines hourly earnings for reemployed workers and considers factors that explain low earnings for older workers.
D. Women and the Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities Facing Women as They Age: This annual report from the Older Women’s League looks at how factors such as unemployment and underemployment, pay inequality, caregiving, age and gender discrimination, education, training, and technology are impacting women age 40 and older. The report highlights existing programs that produce real results and offer innovative solutions and policy-driven recommendations to expand economic diversity and accelerate our nation’s productivity.
E. Tapping Mature Talent: Policies for a 21st Century Workforce: Since 2009, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) has overseen technical assistance to 10 sites funded by the U.S. Department of Labor as part of an Aging Worker Initiative (AWI). As this initiative came to a close, the CAEL invited leading experts on the mature workforce to help them showcase the work of the AWI grantees alongside their own research findings. This publication—the first in a five-part series of papers—describes the experiences, best practices, and lessons of the USDOL-funded Aging Worker Initiative. To read the summary policy recommendations emerging from this initiative, click here.
IV. WORTH NOTING
A. Who’s (Still) Above the Social Security Payroll Tax Cap?: This issue brief from the Center for Economic and Policy Research reports that 5.8 percent of workers would be affected if the Social Security cap were eliminated entirely and 1.4 percent would be affected if the current tax were applied to earnings over $250,000. Detailed breakdowns by gender, race or ethnicity, age, and state of residence, show that the share of workers that would pay more varies widely. (Note: Washington, DC ranks first in workers with annual earnings over $110,100 and $250,000, by state and gender!).
B. Active Living for All Ages: Creating Neighborhoods Around Transit: This six-minute video produced by AARP’s Public Policy Institute in collaboration with Streetfilms highlights how transit-oriented development (TOD) facilitates the independence and mobility of older adults. The video features conversations with residents, local officials and experts in TOD in Arlington, Virginia—a walkable, mixed-use community with access to a variety of public transit options, entertainment and recreation, and basic services such as shopping and medical services.
C. Raising Expectations: A State Scorecard on Long-Term Services and Supports for Older Adults, People with Physical Disabilities, and Family Caregivers: To help states identify gaps in long-term services and supports (LTSS)—which include home care, assisted living, and nursing home care—AARP’s Public Policy Institute, The Commonwealth Fund, and The SCAN Foundation, developed the first state LTSS scorecard. The scorecard website allows users to generate downloadable tables and bar charts based on their selection of performance indicators and states for comparison.
V. WHAT'S HAPPENING ABROAD?
A. Shades of Gray: A Cross-Country Study of Health and Well-Being of the Older Populations in SAGE Countries: While the older population is often defined as people aged 60 and older or 65 and older, these age cut-offs may not be as relevant for less developed countries where life expectancy at birth as of 2010 was 12 years lower, on average, than in more developed countries. This United States Census report examines life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, the burden of disease, and socioeconomic changes as people age across countries.
B. WHY NOT NOW? A Bold, Five-Year Strategy for Innovating Ontario's System of Care for Older Adults: The final report of The Board of the Ontario Long Term Care Association Long Term Care Innovation Expert Panel proposes a bold and ambitious three-pronged strategy with over 65 recommendations for innovation and integration of long term care that will "ensure that Ontario's health care system is well positioned to provide high quality, cost effective care to the aging population for the future. Click here for the Executive Summary or view the Full Report.
C. Addressing the Challenge of Global Ageing: Funding Issues and Insurance Solutions: This new report by The Geneva Association, an international insurance economics think tank, aims to help governments, employers and individuals better understand the insurance industry’s potential contribution to stable and sustainable retirement systems in the era of global aging. With 14 papers from old-age security experts, industry practitioners, as well as the IMF and Center for Strategic and International Studies, this report provides an overview of the global aging challenge, the resulting funding issues as well as challenges and opportunities for the insurance industry.
VI. PERSPECTIVES ON POLICY: ROB HUDSON, EDITOR, PP&AR
Arguably, the two dominant demographic trends underway in the United States are population aging and immigration. After decades of slow growth, the American population will age dramatically over the course of the next three decades. Immigration to the U.S. reached unprecedented levels over the past three decades, with rates only recently dropping. Examined together, these developments raise two distinct sets of policy questions. One centers on overall immigration to the U.S., the critical issue being the degree to which immigration will mitigate the labor force and social policy pressures associated with population aging. A second less examined question calls attention to the roles and needs of older immigrants, both those who arrived earlier in life and are aging “in place” here and those who have come to the United States in their later years. The authors in the latest issue of PP&AR (Volume 22, Number 2) bring multiple insights to both of these questions.
Viewing data both retrospectively and prospectively, Steven Camarota concludes that new arrivals to the U.S. only marginally lower the nation’s average age overall and that expected arrivals between now and 2030 will not have much of an effect on the working-age share of the population. Dowell Myers presents a contrasting view, arguing that immigration can be a significant, though not sole, factor in easing fiscal pressures associated with an aging population. Janet Wilmoth portrays the diversity and vulnerability of late-life immigrants, including language barriers, living arrangements, and mental health issues. Kerstin Gerst and Jeffrey Burr turn attention to socio-economic circumstances of older immigrants and to their use of social welfare programs. In the issue’s concluding article, Walter Leutz examines the particular plight of foreign born workers in the long-term supportive services labor market. Readers will be highly engaged by these insightful analyses of aging and immigration.
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Newsletter Editors: Greg O'Neill, National Academy on an Aging Society; Andy Achenbaum, University of Houston.
The Public Policy and Aging E-Newsletter is supported in part by a grant from the AARP Office of Academic Affairs. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Gerontological Society of America, the National Academy on an Aging Society, or the AARP Office of Academic Affairs.
© Copyright 2012; all rights reserved.
