Senior Prescription Savings

While large numbers of age 18+ self-identified Florida voters support the idea of limiting the amount of money that can be collected and spent by the state government, many would oppose any proposal to limit government?s taxing and spending ability if such limits would result in cuts to essential services. (20 pages)

Five research teams will receive $400,000 each to collaborate on translational and multi-disciplinary research on aging as the first recipients of the Hartford/AFAR Collaborative Research Awards, an extension of the Paul B. Beeson Career Development Scholars Program. The announcement was made by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and the John A. Hartford Foundation. [click link for full article]

The Wall Street Journal on Friday published two letters to the editor in response to a July 19 article about Medicaid. In the article, the Journal reported that many state Medicaid programs, "straining under surging costs, are balancing their budgets by freezing or reducing payments to doctors" -- moves that have prompted a number of physicians to end participation in the programs ( [click link for full article]

House legislation (HR 3162) that would expand and reauthorize SCHIP and make revisions to Medicare will need to be revised to meet pay/go rules before it can be considered by the full chamber, CongressDaily reports (Johnson, CongressDaily, 7/27). [click link for full article]

New Jersey's total health care liabilities for current and future public employees total $69 billion, according to a report by consulting firm Aon delivered to the State Health Benefits Program commission on Thursday, the [click link for full article]

The New York City Department for the Aging is providing no-cost condoms and HIV tests to the city's elderly population in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus throughout the group, the AP/Forbes reports. According to Bernard Branson, associate director for laboratory diagnostics in the [click link for full article]

AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, said that changes to Medicare are needed to provide older Australians with better access to GPs. Dr Capolingua said elderly Australians in aged care facilities, or still in their homes, are suffering more complex and multiple health problems, but their ability to visit a doctor is often limited. [click link for full article]

The use of energy-absorbing hip protector pads won't prevent hip fractures, new research suggests. "We found that there was no benefit to the hip protector," said study author Dr. Douglas Kiel, director of medical research at the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. The finding is reported in the June 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. [click link for full article]

The American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses Association (ASPAN) is launching its geriatric web resource available at http://www.aspan.org. This new section of the site is a continuation of ASPAN's work with the Nurse Competence in Aging (NCA) initiative*.The U.S. census estimates that there will be 40 million Americans age 65 years and older in 2010. [click link for full article]

Most Medicare health care providers continue to be satisfied with services provided by Medicare fee-for-service contractors, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported last week. The Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey (MCPSS), conducted by CMS for the second year, is designed to garner objective, quantifiable data on provider satisfaction with the fee-for-service contractors that process and pay Medicare claims. [click link for full article]