What do all the roughly 60 million Medicare beneficiaries in America have in common? Every single one is slated to receive a new Medicare card between now and April 2019. And because of that, every single one is a target for scam artists dead set on using the rollout of the new cards as a…
No one would say that a 25-year-old is just like a 50-year-old, or that someone who’s 40 has the same health issues as someone in their mid-60s. Yet when it comes to treating senior patients, too many doctors seem to think that everyone 65 and older is exactly the same! The obvious fact is that…
We just discovered a highly disturbing article on the website HealthDay that puts a new spin on today’s chorus of headlines about the nation’s opioid crisis. According to two new government reports, a growing number of seniors are falling prey to this insidious category of highly addictive painkillers. Opioid Crisis Increasing but Under-Recognized As reported…
If there were one key to a satisfying and happy retirement, what do you suppose it would be? A big bank account? A fancy condo on the beach? Great health insurance? The answer, say the experts, may surprise you: the key to happiness and satisfaction later in life is to have a healthy network of…
When we summarize articles about retirement for our AgingOptions blog readers, we don’t typically begin at the end. But as we scanned this extremely helpful article that was just published by Forbes, we not only liked the thinking behind the article but we liked how the author, retirement author and professor Jamie Hopkins, summarized his…
New rules just put forth by the Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) will make dramatic changes to the Veterans Pension, a tax-free benefit paid to low-income vets who served during a designated period of war. Some planners were surprised by the change, concerned that the new VA rules, which were published September 18th and…
President Donald Trump’s tax cut plan which took effect in 2018 has reduced income taxes for many Americans and is credited by supporters with helping boost the U.S. economy. But hidden in the new law is a potentially unwelcome tax surprise for many retirees, according to your friends at the Internal Revenue Service. An Unhappy…
A new report just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) has revealed a startling statistic. Researchers now predict that the number of cases of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States will soar in the next four decades, creating a health care crisis that could be three times worse than what…
From our earliest days most of us were taught to be generous, especially with those closest to us. But ironically, as we enter retirement and confront the need to be more fiscally cautious, our adult kids and grandkids are just coming into the phase of their lives when financial crises seem to pop up on…
Some may wonder why we at AgingOptions report fairly frequently on celebrities who pass away leaving chaos in their wake in the form of terrible estate planning. It’s not that we seek to gloat over the fall from grace of the rich and famous. We fully realize that the family members of these famous men…