Three women explain how life’s surprises can catapult their efforts to carefully manage limited budgets and lead to financial distress.
Category: Aging
Unraveling the Interplay of Omicron, Reinfections, and Long Covid
The omicron variant has proved adept at finding hosts, often by reinfecting people who recovered from earlier bouts of covid. But whether omicron triggers long covid as often and severe as previous variants is a matter of heated study.
For Medically Vulnerable Families, Inflation’s Squeeze Is Inescapable
Inflation hasn’t hit Americans like this in decades. And families living with chronic diseases have little choice but to pay more for the medicine, supplies, and food they need to stay healthy.
Watch: How Nursing Homes Put Friends and Families on the Hook for Residents’ Debts
In pursuit of unpaid bills, nursing homes across Rochester, New York, have been suing relatives and friends of their residents. This CBS News report, done in partnership with a KHN-NPR investigation, takes a look at the practice and tells the stories of some of the people affected.
No, the Senate-Passed Reconciliation Bill Won’t Strip $300 Billion From Medicare
Under the Medicare drug negotiations provisions in the reconciliation bill, the federal government would see its outlays reduced by about $300 billion. That reduction wouldn’t result from cuts in benefits. Instead, Medicare would be empowered to leverage its market power to pay lower prices for certain drugs.
Cognitive Rehab May Help Older Adults Clear Covid-Related Brain Fog
People whose brains have been injured by concussions, traumatic accidents, strokes, or neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease can benefit from targeted therapy. Experts also employ therapies for long-covid patients with memory and language problems.
Hospices Have Become Big Business for Private Equity Firms, Raising Concerns About End-of-Life Care
Private equity firms are seeing opportunities for profit in hospice care, once the domain of nonprofit organizations. The investment companies are transforming the industry — and might be jeopardizing patient care — in the process.
Nursing Homes Are Suing the Friends and Family of Residents to Collect Debts
Debt lawsuits — long a byproduct of America’s medical debt crisis — can ensnare not only patients but also those who help sick and older people be admitted to nursing homes, a KHN-NPR investigation finds.
‘True Cost of Aging’ Index Shows Many Seniors Can’t Afford Basic Necessities
The Elder Index, developed by researchers at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, shows that nearly 5 million older women living alone, 2 million older men living alone, and more than 2 million older couples have incomes that make them economically insecure.
Ad Targeting Manchin and AARP Mischaracterizes Medicare Drug-Price Negotiations
The advocacy group American Commitment said empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices would raid it of billions of dollars. Drug pricing experts say that that’s not the case and that such policies would instead reduce costs for the Medicare program and seniors.
