Tag Archives: budget

Proposed federal budget filled with cuts to programs benefiting older Americans

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Photo: Susan Jane Golding via Flickr

The Trump Administration’s proposed $4.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2021 features plenty of reductions to spending for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Naturally, this has Democrats and elder advocates up in arms.

The proposal would slash Medicare by $850 billion, Medicaid by $920 billion and Social Security by $30 billion over the next decade, according to The Washington Post. It also includes cuts to Children’s Health Insurance programs, despite previous statements by the president that entitlements would remain untouched. Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist based in New York’s Hudson Valley, who writes about caregiving, dementia, access to care, nursing homes and policy in her role as AHCJ’s Health Beat Leader for Aging. Seegert helps provide context for reporting on this multidimensional issue with story posts, tip sheets, analysis, data and one-on-one interviews with aging experts.

Gaining a deeper appreciation for the costs of basic science

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Photo: Tara Haelle

It’s not difficult to understand why clinical trials are so incredibly expensive. There’s the recruitment of the participants and their compensation, the cost of the drugs themselves, the work that has to go into ensuring both participants and clinicians are appropriately blinded (at least in double-blinded trials), the many visits to monitor symptoms and improvement, the time spent crunching the data – the dollars add up fast.

It’s harder (at least for me) to grasp where all the money goes for basic science. It’s often just cells in a petri dish, along with the fancy (and very expensive) microscope and computer equipment needed to examine them. Continue reading →

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

How the new budget package may affect older adults

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Photo: Anne Worner via Flickr

The massive $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill was signed by President Trump on Friday and is now law. Several provisions within the 2,200-plus pages of legislation maintain or increase funding for programs and services that benefit older adults.

The spending bill provides $4.5 million in health promotion for Alzheimer’s disease and $2 million for initiatives to prevent falls among older people, according to a story in McKnight’s Senior Living. Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist based in New York’s Hudson Valley, who writes about caregiving, dementia, access to care, nursing homes and policy in her role as AHCJ’s Health Beat Leader for Aging. Seegert helps provide context for reporting on this multidimensional issue with story posts, tip sheets, analysis, data and one-on-one interviews with aging experts.

Reporters highlight the budget bill’s impact on older adults

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Photo: V.T. Polywoda via Flickr

President Trump last week signed a budget bill that is likely to affect the health of older adults in a variety of ways. Here’s an overview to help guide coverage in your community.

Thanks to the tenacious work of many of my colleagues, you can probably skip over much of the 600-plus pages of legislationese and go straight to the highlight reel. In a comprehensive New York Times piece, Margot Sanger-Katz, Brad Plumer, Erica L. Green and Jim Tankersley explain key provisions. Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist based in New York’s Hudson Valley, who writes about caregiving, dementia, access to care, nursing homes and policy in her role as AHCJ’s Health Beat Leader for Aging. Seegert helps provide context for reporting on this multidimensional issue with story posts, tip sheets, analysis, data and one-on-one interviews with aging experts.

A check-up on the status of the health exchanges

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Remember when Sen. Susan Collins, Maine’s moderate Republican, predicated her vote for the Senate tax bill that included the repeal of the individual mandate on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise to her that the Senate would vote on two ACA stabilization measures?

Those bills did not make it into short-term spending bill at the end of 2017, nor the last month’s short-term spending bill. We aren’t holding our breath that they will be in the next bill, or the one after that. To recap: Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.