By Shannon Firth; MedPage Today ~ May 03, 2017

WASHINGTON — From reciprocal approvals to rethinking coupon cards, health policy experts and economists offered targeted solutions to tackling drivers of increased drug spending at a briefing hosted by the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy and the Center for Health Policy.

The reasons behind the growth in drug spending include everything from patient “kickbacks” to price-gouging and a lack of biosimilar competition, said policy experts at the meeting Tuesday at the Brookings Institution.

By Casey Dowd; Fox Business ~ Apr 30, 2017

Many current and soon-to-be retirees still struggling from the Great Financial Crisis have decided to pack their bags and spend their golden years overseas, according to a new survey.

Travel Market Report, an online business publication, reports as many as 3.3 million American Baby Boomers are planning to retire abroad.

By Eric Mack; Newsmax ~ Apr 30, 2017

President Donald Trump promised Sunday, “the concept of Medicare, I’m not touching,” even as he is inclined to address “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the program, he said Sunday.

“Let me more clear: I’m not going to touch it, because I said it,” President Trump told host John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face The Nation” of the campaign promise to keep Medicare in the upcoming healthcare, budget, and tax reforms.

From Robin Seaton Jefferson; Forbes ~ Apr 29, 2017

L. Frank Baum wrote it in his 1900 novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” and it still resonates. “There’s no place like home.” And we find out as we get older that the thought of living anywhere but home is almost more than we can bare. The fact is our homes-whatever their splendor-are our castles and we want to stay in them.

By Julia Zorthian; Fortune ~ Apr 27, 2017

Authorities arrested eight people for impersonating IRS employees over the phone and telling victims wire them money for “back taxes.”

The people involved defrauded over 7,000 people of nearly $8.8 million, according to a statement from the Department of the Treasury, by convincing victims to wire them money using services like MoneyGram. The IRS impersonators would allegedly threaten arrest or use other forms of intimidation to get people to send the money, court documents said.

By Doug G. Ware; United Press International ~ Apr 27, 2017

April 27 (UPI) — More than eight decades after President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced Social Security to the United States, the country’s principal retirement and disability assistance program is again facing an uncertain future.

Roosevelt’s ambitious insurance initiative was never universally accepted. Driven by skyrocketing poverty rates among seniors on the contrails of the Great Depression, the law was lambasted by many — including some in the president’s own Democratic Party — as a gateway to socialism.

By Anjali Athavaley; Reuters ~ Apr 25, 2017

AT&T Inc’s (T.N) quarterly revenue missed estimates on lower equipment sales, the company said on Tuesday, as customers held onto their phones longer and it lost wireless subscribers who pay a monthly bill.

The No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier had 61,000 fewer postpaid subscribers, who pay bills monthly, in North America on a net basis in the first quarter ended March 31.

Analysts on average had estimated 95,000 subscriber additions, according financial data and analytics firm FactSet.

By “Staff Reports”; Money Morning ~ Apr 25, 2017

The clock is ticking. If Congress doesn’t pass a spending bill by midnight on Friday (April 28), then Uncle Sam will run out of money and shut down.

Will a Government Shutdown Affect Social Security?
The prospect of this outcome has left many American retirees wondering the exact same question: Will a government shutdown affect Social Security?

The answer depends largely on your specific status with the Social Security Administration (SSA) as of Friday at midnight.

By Lisa Ward; The Wall Street Journal ~ Apr 23, 2017

As baby boomers increasingly assist their elderly parents with health issues large and small, families are having to rethink personal boundaries.

Should a son accompanying his mother on a visit to her primary-care physician reveal that she is struggling with depression? Is it any business of an elderly man’s family that he is using Viagra?

By Matt Sedensky; The Associated Press ~ Apr 22, 2017

NEW YORK (AP) — The phone call came as Raymond Murray neared the bottom of his luck. His wife had died, his career had been ended by injuries, and struggling to get by on his disability check, he had scraped together just enough to pay a lawyer to avoid imminent foreclosure on his modest Brooklyn home.