Tag Archives: budget

Proposed federal budget filled with cuts to programs benefiting older Americans

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About Liz Seegert

Liz Seegert (@lseegert), is AHCJ’s topic editor on aging. Her work has appeared in NextAvenue.com, Journal of Active Aging, Cancer Today, Kaiser Health News, the Connecticut Health I-Team and other outlets. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and co-produces the HealthCetera podcast.

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 →

Gaining a deeper appreciation for the costs of basic science

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About Tara Haelle

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.

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 →

How the new budget package may affect older adults

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About Liz Seegert

Liz Seegert (@lseegert), is AHCJ’s topic editor on aging. Her work has appeared in NextAvenue.com, Journal of Active Aging, Cancer Today, Kaiser Health News, the Connecticut Health I-Team and other outlets. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and co-produces the HealthCetera podcast.

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 →

Reporters highlight the budget bill’s impact on older adults

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About Liz Seegert

Liz Seegert (@lseegert), is AHCJ’s topic editor on aging. Her work has appeared in NextAvenue.com, Journal of Active Aging, Cancer Today, Kaiser Health News, the Connecticut Health I-Team and other outlets. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and co-produces the HealthCetera podcast.

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 →

A check-up on the status of the health exchanges

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About Joanne Kenen

Joanne Kenen, (@JoanneKenen) the health editor at Politico, has been AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform and curated related material at healthjournalism.org. Follow her on Facebook.

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 →

Making sense of how the new tax bill will impact health care

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About Joanne Kenen

Joanne Kenen, (@JoanneKenen) the health editor at Politico, has been AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform and curated related material at healthjournalism.org. Follow her on Facebook.

Photo by Sean Stayte via flickr.

The House and the Senate both have passed tax bills which have provisions that will deeply affect health care, ranging from the repeal of the individual mandate to repeal of a tax credit meant to help businesses comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Since the bills are not identical, the final legislation must first be negotiated in a conference committee. Not all the provisions will survive, although the final bill most likely will more closely resemble the Senate version, which includes repealing the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. Continue reading →