Coming of Age

Coming of Age Magazine is the only senior-oriented lifestyle publication in Northwest Florida. Locally produced and published in Pensacola, Florida by Council on Aging of West Florida in partnership with Ballinger Publishing. Coming of Age was created specifically to educate and entertain the broad, diverse senior population, adult children of aging parents and caregivers. The magazine covers information on varied topics such as travel, caregiving, finance, advocacy, health and community events as well as feature articles and an exclusive celebrity interview.

Since being launched in 2005, Coming of Age has earned the Senior Vision Media Award from the Florida Council on Aging and Golden Image Awards from the Florida Public Relations Association. On the national level, Coming of Age has been an annual recipient of National Mature Media Awards from the Mature Market Research Center since 2007. Coming of Age Magazine is published quarterly in March, June, September and December. The magazine also offers advertising opportunities for businesses and organizations looking to reach the much sought after senior population.

If you are looking for convenient, credible information from local experts on topics relevant to seniors, we also have over 130 past interviews from Coming of Age TV archived as an online resource for you archived on our YouTube Channel.

For more information on Coming of Age, please contact Jeff Nall, APR, CPRC, Vice President of Marketing Communications at jnall@coawfla.org or 432-1475 ext. 130.

Future of Medicare and Social Security

By: John B. Clark
President & CEO, Council on Aging of West Florida

In the coming months, one topic that will be on the "front burner" of every politician and policy maker at the national level will be "fixing" and/or "reforming" Social Security and Medicare.

Among the things you will hear regarding Social Security will be; privatizing the system, increasing the retirement age, changing the way cost of living adjustments are figured, raising the income limits for working persons on contributions to Social Security and/or means testing (limiting it to low income people). With Medicare reform, there will be talk about "turning it over" to the private sector, increasing premiums, increasing co-pays, and/or increasing the contributions made by working people.

Perhaps no single program has done more to lift hundreds of millions of elder citizens out of poverty than Social Security. It is hard today for us to imagine what it was like for people 65 and older before 1935, the year Social Security was enacted into law. For millions it meant working until death, because many had no "pensions." It meant having to depend on the generosity of others, often family, many of whom were getting by day to day. Families did, as most do today, step up to the plate to care for their loved ones. But with the passage of Social Security, it meant, for the first time, that every American would at last have a small "guaranteed" income for as long as they lived.

Today, Social Security is the major source of income for most of the elderly. According to the Social Security Administration, it accounts for 41 percent of the income of the elderly. Fourtythree percent of unmarried persons and 22 percent of married couples rely on Social Security for 90 percent of their income. Nine out of ten individuals age 65 and older receive Social Security benefits. It is a vital part of the "safety net" for the majority of senior citizens.

The problems began when Social Security was expanded to cover those who became disabled, the children of a deceased worker and the spouse of a worker. It is also true that when Social Security became law, the average life expectancy for all Americans was only 61.7 years old! Today it is 78.3 for Americans. Along with a declining birth rate and fewer workers to support those on Social Security, it is clear why there is such a strain on the system.

At the same time, while Medicare was enacted into law in 1965, it too has run up against some serious financial problems. These are also the result of an increased life expectancy, but also an increase in the cost of medical care and expanded coverage to include disabled workers. However, the "fixes" that might be made to both Social Security and Medicare are inextricably bound. Why is this so?

According to an article by Ken Swartz of the National Council on Aging (NCOA), new poverty rates released by the U.S Census Bureau show an alarming increase in the poverty rate for senior citizens, nearly doubling to 15.9 percent. Why is this happening? According to the article, "the criteria by which poverty is measured was expanded for this study to include a more accurate reflection of a person’s overall economic needs and vulnerability, including out of pocket health care costs." Swartz goes on to note that "in 2009 Medicare households spent three times more on health expenses (14.9 percent) than non Medicare households (4.8 percent)." This includes such things as Medicare premiums, deductibles, co-pays, supplemental Medicare policies and increasing drug costs. Swartz noted that this health care expenditure by seniors is projected to reach 26 percent in 2020, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study. What does this mean? It means that when you factor in what a senior citizen spends on health care and deduct that from their income, their poverty rate rises significantly for many seniors. It should be clear to anyone, that further increasing premiums and deductibles, decreasing Social Security payments, or any combination of these events, could have disastrous results for millions of senior citizens who depend on these two critical entitlement programs; pushing them into poverty.

Those of us who want to see these programs preserved for the current generation and future generations understand that systemic changes will ultimately have to be made to both programs. But we also know what these programs have meant, and continue to mean, to millions of senior citizens; a lifeline, preserving a quality of life that provides millions with the most basic necessities; a guaranteed income and access to quality health care. I have tried to point out in this article what some of the problems are and how they have happened over the years.

No, I am not offering you any answers. Sorry, folks; that is the job of people far above my pay grade. If the President, Congress, the "Super Committee" cannot arrive at solutions to these problems; don’t expect me to give you an answer. What I would hope and ask for is that our elected officials and policy makers who are of good faith will keep in mind the millions of senior citizens of modest and little means for whom these two entitlement programs are a lifeline and which are often the difference between a very modest quality of life and going off the cliff into poverty. Don’t be afraid to make your voice heard. Trust me, the special interest lobbyists will be heard, so you must make your opinion heard by those making these decisions.