Fifty Plus Advocates

BOSTON — After analyzing Gov. Deval Patrick’s Fiscal Year 2013 state budget proposal (House 2), released last week, Deborah Banda, state director of AARP Massachusetts – which represents more than 800,000 members age 50 and older in the commonwealth — issued the following statement: “With five consecutive years of state budget revenue shortfalls, programs that [...]

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Doris Day, America’s pert, honey-voiced sweetheart of the 1950s and 1960s, beguiled audiences with her on-screen romances opposite top Hollywood leading men Cary Grant, Rock Hudson and Jack Lemmon.

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BOSTON — Like a falling thermostat, federal fuel aid to low income households in Massachusetts has plunged by 28 percent compared to last year as the winter heating season descends on New England. Last year Massachusetts received approximately $184 million in Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding from the federal government. This year, [...]

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WASHINGTON — Medicare officials say hundreds of thousands of doctors will get a steep cut in payments on Jan. 18 unless a gridlocked Congress issues a reprieve. A provision waiving a scheduled 27.4 percent cut in physician reimbursement was included in the payroll tax legislation now ensnared in partisan political wrangling. On Monday, Medicare sent an [...]

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Raising taxes on millionaires may be a non-starter for Republicans, but they seem to have no problem hiking Medicare premiums for retirees making a lot less. The House is expected to vote Tuesday on a year-end economic package that includes a provision raising premiums for “high-income” Medicare beneficiaries, now defined as those making $85,000 and [...]

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WASHINGTON — Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid New England winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can’t afford enough heating oil to stay warm. She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension [...]

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