Poverty From Rising Medical Costs Hard To Swallow For Nation’s Elderly
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Meanwhile, how the other half lives still isn’t pretty:
The National Academy of Science’s formula, which is gaining credibility with public officials including some in the Obama administration, would put the poverty rate for Americans 65 and over at 18.6 percent, or 6.8 million people, compared with 9.7 percent, or 3.6 million people, under the existing measure.
The original government formula, created in 1955, doesn’t take into account rising costs of medical care and other factors.
Seriously, the formula for calculating poverty rates among the elderly hasn’t been changed since 1955? And it’s never taken into account rising medical costs in a rapidly aging population? That’s incredibly daft, so much so that one would think it was deliberate to prevent the public from knowing the full extent of the problems.
What kind of problems, you ask? Ones like this:
Like many older people, Woodruff and his wife spend a tremendous portion of monthly expense money on medicine, he said.
“I know people that don’t even eat to pay for their prescriptions,” he said.
He also knows people who ration medication into smaller dosages just to get by, in addition to those who struggle with everyday expenses such as his own recent electricity bill than ran more than $300.
When you are this close to the edge, $20 can be the difference between starvation and making it through the month. And for so many seniors who have watched their retirement nest egg dwindle or who have had their pension funds yanked out from beneath them through corporate bankruptcy proceedings that were out of their control? It’s shaping up to be an even leaner winter this year.
Especially with a moratorium on COLAs for social security recipients looming.
It doesn’t help that millions still remain out of work for more than 6 months, so that families are too strapped for money to help fully bridge the gap for elderly relatives, either.
Every time people rail about health care reforms, I wonder if they know anyone who is elderly and barely getting by? Or if they even bother to notice, even if they do?
Having lived on minimum wage in the past I know what counting pennies means, Iknow what kind of stress that can be. I only had myself to take care of and could always call my mother in case of really dire need. It is a rotten place to be stuck in.