Help increase awareness of the SNAP medical deduction
By Michael E. Festa
Here in the Northeast, a long and harsh winter can be a particularly challenging time for elders. Seniors on fixed incomes...
Medicare to reward hospitals for providing better care
By Ron Pollack
Heart failure. Pneumonia. Heart attack. If you or a loved one suffers from one of these health conditions, you will want to...
Tips for choosing a doctor
Referrals from another physician or family and friends are a first step in choosing a doctor, but specialists advise doing some research to finalize...
Let’s end all sales tax holidays
Several years ago I bought a kitchen stove during the “sales tax holiday” in Massachusetts. Most years I ignore the “holiday” on sales tax. But the kitchen stove was a purchase I needed to make, so I waited for the tax free weekend. In my case, the retailer who sold me the stove did not benefit from the “holiday”---because I was going to buy it anyway, and all I did was time my purchase to avoid taxes. It was only the taxpayers who got the short end.
Things to consider for a VA pension
By Tracey Ingle
I talk with a lot of veterans who are disappointed they don’t qualify for a Veteran’s Pension, and dismiss the whole subject...
August Hachette audio book releases
THE LOST ISLAND* (A Gideon Crew novel) Pub Date: August 5
By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child Read by David W. Collins
In the third...
The real state of the (elder) commonwealth
For the past decade, I have reviewed the text of the annual State of the Commonwealth (SOTC) speeches by three governors. I look carefully for use of the word “elderly” or “seniors” to see if there are any significant policy statements about our growing elderly population.
Between 2010 and 2020, the Massachusetts population 60+ is projected to grow from 1.27 million to 1.63 million, a 31-percent increase of 359,845 elders. One-quarter of all of the households in Massachusetts includes at least one person aged 65 and over. The population of people aged 65 and over in Massachusetts, as a percentage of total state population, will jump 50 percent between 2010 and 2030, from 14 percent of the population, to 21 percent of the population.
No one fix to slow hospital readmission epidemic
More than 1 million Americans wind up back in the hospital only weeks after they left for reasons that could have been prevented — a revolving door that for years has seemed impossible to slow.
Do you hear what I hear?
By Robert Mario
In both animals and humans, vocal signals used for communication contain a wide array of different sounds that are determined by the...
Losing weight, keeping it off, two different things
“No one announces to a dieter, ‘You’re moving into the weight-maintenance stage. You’ll have to do things differently,’ said Dr. Christopher Sciamanna.
