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Save Medicare’s Home Health Benefit | Commentary
The Affordable Care Act was sold to the American public with the promise of improved access to health care for all who previously could not afford it. In a September 2013 speech on the ACA, President Barack Obama recalled examples…
Social Security Disability Benefits
Like most people, you probably don’t expect to become disabled. However, you are three times more likely to become disabled due to illness or injury than to die during your earning years. (Source: 1985 Commissioner’s Individual Disability Table A.) That’s…
5 reasons not to retire in the U.S.
More than half a million retirees receive their Social Security benefits abroad, according to International Living , a monthly newsletter focusing on retiring overseas. The Social Security Administration currently sends 613,650 retirement-benefit payments outside the U.S., more than double the 242,128 benefit payments sent…
How Today’s Workers Can Dodge the Retirement Crisis
Trying to figure our whether mid-career folks like myself are adequately preparing for retirement can get a bit confusing. If you look at Boston College’s National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI), as of 2013 as many as 52% of households aged…
Obama Signs Autism Act Renewal
With little fanfare, President Barack Obama signed a reauthorization of the nation’s primary autism legislation that includes more than a billion dollars in federal funding for the developmental disorder. Signed on Friday, the law calls for $260 million annually through 2019…
Why Millennials Aren’t Lazy, Spoiled or Entitled
More than a few readers have responded to my articles with a common refrain that kids today are given much more than older generations — and thus are much more willing to spend and less principled in saving. And that this deficit…
Government disability payments skyrocketing despite fewer veterans
Even though there are fewer veterans now than a decade ago, the government is paying nearly three times as much in disability payments as it did then, according to a budget analysis that says the war on terrorism has left…
America’s Adults Won’t Be Ready For Retirement
The Great Recession has had a huge affect on people’s retirement plans — and many households are not adequately prepared for the future. This is according to the results of a new Federal Reserve survey. Adults now expect to keep working past retirement…
Medicare helps keep elderly out of poverty
Medicare celebrated its 49th anniversary on July 30. President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill in 1965, while Harry Truman was seated next to him, receiving the very first Medicare card. A few facets of Medicare to celebrate are: The poverty…
Too often, parents raid retirement funds to pay college costs
While parents share in the excitement and celebration of their children receiving acceptance letters from the colleges of their choice, many of them also quietly agonize over how they are going to foot the bill. Too often, parents who have…