And The Best State To Grow Old In Is...

Elder-care company Caring.com recently conducted a study to determine the best US states to grow old in. And the winner is…

Utah.

That"s right: In addition to being one of the top 5 fiscally responsible states in the Union, the home of Mormonism is also the most friendly state for elderly Americans to grow old and retire in. Earlier this year, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University compiled a comprehensive study, based on a number of objective financial metrics, ranking the 50 US states according to their overall fiscal condition. Utah came in third behind Alaska and Florida.

But Utah handily bested both those states on a ranking based on 13 categories including quality, cost, and availability of health care for seniors, as well as factors that speak to the state’s overall quality of life.

Here’s a breakdown of the data, courtesy of Bloomberg:

Best states:
Utah/$2,950
Iowa/$3,518
South Carolina/$3,000
Washington/$4,500
Nebraska/$3,510

Worst states:
Wyoming/$3,995
North Dakota/$3,340
New York/$4,136
Indiana/$3,528
West Virginia/$3,263

New York, one of the worst states for retirees, was singled out because of the extreme disparity between health-care cost and quality, as Bloomberg explains…

“New York, No. 33 in the well-being ranking, was singled out by Caring.com for its extremes. The very high cost of the state’s health care doesn’t produce results close to commensurate with that spending, according to the report. While New York ranked 46th in cost (the lower the rank, the higher the cost), its life/health care quality rank was 34 (the lower the rank, the worse the quality). Massachusetts had a similar pattern; it ranked 49th in cost and 18th in quality. That’s reflective of a larger trend in the U.S.—high spending on health care isn’t translating into longer lives, as this interactive graphic demonstrates.”

Washington State and California do a better job of translating higher costs to better-quality care…

“Higher costs show more of a payoff in Washington state and California. Washington is 38th for cost and is the top state for quality of life and health care. California has a cost ranking of 36 and quality ranking of 3 (it’s tied with Oregon for quality).”

According to Bloomberg, the lighter the color, the higher the overall ranking of the state as a place to grow old.

The study was conducted by Caring.com, which ranked states on 13 categories, including quality, cost, and availability of health care for seniors. The study’s authors used a range of data sets, including Census data and proprietary data sets from AARP.

“The ranking, which drew on data from the U.S. Census, the insurer Genworth, AARP, the Commonwealth Fund, and Gallup-Healthways, among others, also factored in 150,000 consumer reviews from Caring.com’s database of facilities and care providers for seniors. The availability, quality, and cost of care for the elderly got greater attention in the report than some of the common measures used in retirement destination rankings.”

As Tim Sullivan, vice president at Caring.com, explains, the author’s decision to name the study “The Best States To Grow Old In” instead of “The Best States To Retire In” was meant to highlight an important distinction...

“One reason we call this report the best states to grow old, versus best states to retire, is because it’s really important for people to plan out their 60s, 70s, and 80s with as much care as they plan their retirement in their 30s, 40s, and 50s,” said Tim Sullivan, vice president at Caring.com. “Your needs change as you age, and they are not always going to be driven by the sort of leisure or amenities or weather considerations that are what a lot of people think about retirement.”

The report’s greatest utility, according to Bloomberg, is helping to spark a discussion about where millennials should plan on settling down for the long haul. Unfortunately, Utah is largely devoid of the amenities – like comprehensive public transportation and quality night life – that millennials covet. But affordable health care, low taxes and the state’s overall low cost of living make a compelling case for going without.

Paul Craig Roberts: "Once Only Blacks Were Enslaved, Now We All Are"

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

The 4th of July is upon us.

We will hear all sorts of patriotic BS about how wonderful we are and how thankful we are to our brave military which defends our liberty.

Not a word will be said about the destruction by the Bush and Obama regimes of the US Constitution, which once protected our liberty far better than any military action.

Not a word will be said about Washington’s 16 years of purely gratuitous war in the Middle East and North Africa that has destroyed in whole or part seven countries, sending millions of war refugees to overrun the Western World and change the quality of life for Western peoples.

Not a word will be said about Washington’s ongoing insane provocations of Russia and China and Iran and Syria and North Korea that are likely to end in nuclear Armageddon.

Speeches will celebrate “the exceptional, indispensable USA,” and fireworks will go off, preludes to the onrushing nuclear Armageddon.

While we listen to speeches of our wonderful fairy tale life, how lucky we are to be so beloved by our Great Democratic Government, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has issued an all points bulletin urging its members to wake up and to urge their US Senators “...to oppose the American Health Care Act passed by the House..."

"This harmful bill gives billions of dollars to special interests while sticking ordinary Americans with huge premium hikes.

It includes an age tax that would force older Americans to pay thousands of dollars more for their health insurance.

It weakens Medicare and removes protections for people with pre-existing conditions. I urge you to represent my interests—not those of the drug and insurance companies.”

The last sentence astounded me. How is it possible that a lobby group for retired people can possibly believe that the House and Senate have any interest in serving the American people?

The House and Senate serve the people who have money, and those people are not the elderly. Thanks to the Federal Reserve, the elderly have not had any interest income on their savings for a decade.

Moreover, thanks to jobs offshoring, the middle class is shrinking, and grandparents are having to support out of their savings both children and grandchildren. Savings are being drawn down and used up. Retired Americans simply do not have the resources to compete in Washington with the pharmaceutical and insurance corporations who are determined to pillage the elderly.

In the USA money resides in the hands of the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby (US taxpayers give the money to them), Wall Street and the Banks Too Big To Fail, real estate and insurance, and environmental polluters such as energy, mining, electricity production, and agribusiness. No one else has any money. Therefore, these interest groups determine US domestic and foreign policy.

The policy of the US government is easy to sum up. It consists of driving the American population into the ground and fomenting war abroad. This is what serves the money interests that control the government.

Democracy does not exist in America. All the bombast you will hear on the 4th is designed to keep you locked in The Matrix.

The talk about “taking back your government” is nonsense. The government doesn’t belong to you. You can’t take it back.

Chris Hedges says that your only alternatives are to overthrow the criminal class in Washington or to accept your slavery.

GOP Bill Could Let Employers Access Your Genetic and Health Info

A GOP bill in Congress could give employers access to employees’ personal medical and genetic information and increase financial penalties for people who reject workplace wellness programs. [1]

House Republicans have proposed this legislation that would make it easier for companies to gather DNA and health information from employees and their families – children included – when it’s collected as part of a ‘voluntary’ workplace wellness program. Debate still remains, however, on the effectiveness of such wellness programs in general. [2]

H.R. 1313, the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act, was proposed by Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The bill is under review by other House committees and is awaiting review by the Senate. It has drawn the ire of numerous consumer, health, and privacy advocacy groups, as well as House Democrats.

A spokesperson for the House committee argued that “the legislation will reaffirm existing law and provide regulatory clarity so that employers can have the certainty they need to help lower health care costs for their employees.” Opponents, however, say that the bill could undermine existing laws designed to protect an individual’s personal medical information from use by employers and others. [2]

In a statement, Nancy J. Cox, Ph.D., president of The American Society of Human Genetics, said:

“We urge the Committee not to move forward with consideration of this bill. As longtime advocates of genetic privacy, we instead encourage the Committee to pursue ways to foster workplace wellness and employee health without infringing upon the civil rights afforded by ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and GINA (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act).” [2]

GINA was intended to prohibit genetic discrimination, and passed Congress with bipartisan support in 2008. Under the bill, companies can neither hire nor fire workers on genetic grounds, and GINA banned employers from asking for DNA test results. Workplace wellness programs were the exception to the rule, but the information had to be given voluntarily and only the program director, not employers, would have access. [3]

When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, employers were given the power to levy financial incentives and penalties to urge employees to participate in the supposedly voluntary programs.

As of 1 January 2017, according to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations, employees who opt out of a wellness program can face penalties of up to 30% more, or even 50% more under certain conditions, for work health insurance than those who participate in the program.

Under the Republican bill, employers can demand DNA test results for employees in wellness programs, which directly conflicts with the GINA ban on forcing workers to share their results. If the bill is passed, it would mean that the GINA provisions don’t apply to wellness programs.

Cox said that, if enacted, the bill would “fundamentally undermine” GINA and ADA. [2]

In a letter to Foxx, a group of advocates, including AARP, the American Diabetes Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Epilepsy Foundation, the March of Dimes, and others wrote:

“We strongly oppose any legislation that would allow employers to inquire about employees’ private genetic information or medical information unrelated to their ability to do their jobs, and to impose draconian penalties on employees who choose to keep that information private.” [1]

Sources:

[1] The New York Times

[2] Fox News

[3] Buzzfeed

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.