Fifty Plus Advocates

BOSTON — AARP leaders across the country, and in Springfield, today announced the launch of You’ve Earned a Say, a national conversation about strengthening health and retirement security. With You’ve Earned a Say, AARP is taking the debate about Medicare and Social Security out from behind closed doors in Washington and making sure that all [...]

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By Andrew Taylor WASHINGTON — Taking a pass on reining in government growth, President Barack Obama unveiled a record $3.8 trillion election-year budget plan Monday, calling for stimulus-style spending on roads and schools and tax hikes on the wealthy to help pay the costs. The ideas landed with a thud on Capitol Hill. Though the [...]

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WASHINGTON — Attacked as a rationing scheme and praised as a lifesaver, President Barack Obama’s health care law remains as divisive and confusing as ever. But a new poll finds Americans are less worried that the overhaul will undermine their own care. An Associated Press-GfK poll shows that Americans are less concerned their own personal [...]

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BOSTON — Elder rights groups in Massachusetts say Gov. Deval Patrick’s policy agenda has all but forgotten the state’s aging population.  The statement follows a troubling series of proposals, decisions and developments that have hit hard at services for vulnerable elders, according to leaders of AARP, the Massachusetts Association of Older Americans (MAOA), Massachusetts Councils [...]

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By Al Norman March roared in like a lion with the release of a report by a national group called Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW), which found that seniors in Massachusetts face the largest gap in the nation between income and the cost of basic expenses. You might call this disparity the “independence gap” because [...]

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BOSTON — A second waiting list for elder home care began today. “This is just policy madness,” said Al Norman, executive director of Mass Home Care. “It hurts seniors, hurts taxpayers, and defies common sense.” Though it came as no surprise to the 27 providers of the elderly home care program, the impact will be [...]

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