By Akankshita Mukhopadhyay; Reuters ~ Feb 14, 2017

Feb 14 – Merck & Co Inc said it would halt a late-stage trial of its drug in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease after an external panel pointed to a lack of effectiveness.

The company’s shares were down 2.4 percent at $64.06 in after-market trading on Tuesday.

Merck said the external data monitoring committee, which assessed overall benefit or risk of verubecestat, determined that there was “virtually no chance of finding a positive clinical effect”.

From Larry Light; Forbes ~ Feb 12, 2017

Guest post written by Rick Kahler
Rick Kahler is president of Kahler Financial Group in Rapid City, S. D.

The prospect is scary, but must be faced. For older people, it’s prudent to put a plan in place for when your mental capacity slips. In this first of two articles, Rick Kahler, president of Kahler Financial Group in Rapid City, S. D., tells us how to know when the time has come and what to do:

From Olivia Mitchell; Forbes ~ Feb 10, 2017

Many American households will face a significant retirement financing gap unless they save more, invest more efficiently, retire later, and/or distribute their retirement assets more efficiently. Yet the pain of such difficult behavioral changes might be mitigated by better use of an asset that almost 80 percent of retirees have: the family home.

From Andrew Biggs; Forbes ~ Feb 09, 2017

You Can Thank IRAs and 401(k)s For This

Retirees are “increasingly dependent on Social Security benefits,” says U.S. News and World Report. “Social Security made up 38 percent of the total income of people age 65 and older in 2009—up from 30 percent in 1962.”

By Ann Carrns; The New York Times ~ Feb 08, 2017

No one likes to think about dying — and that is probably one reason most Americans lack wills.

Fewer than half of American adults (42 percent) have a will, according to a survey published this week on Caring.com, a website that offers resources for older Americans and their caregivers.

By Zachary Tracer, Robert Langreth, & Anna Edney; Bloomberg ~ Feb 08, 2017

 Pharmacy benefits managers lay out lobby plan in strategy memo
 President has said he’ll focus on drug costs, pricing

In the fast-moving Washington game of who’s to blame for high U.S. drug prices, an often-overlooked industry is readying its defenses against pharmaceutical companies that fault other parts of the health sector for the costs faced by patients.

From Laurence Kotlikoff; Forbes ~ Feb 07, 2017

When Congress changed Social Security spousal benefit provisions in November 2015, it grandfathered anyone 62 or over 62 as of January 1, 2016. The grandfathering permitted anyone meeting this birth deadline to file just for a spousal benefit starting at full retirement age, while waiting till 70 to collect their own retirement benefit, when it would start at its largest possible value.

By Cécile Daurat & Toluse Olorunnipa; Bloomberg ~ Feb 07, 2017

 ‘He’s for it, yes,’ spokesman says at press briefing
 Stocks slump, then pare losses as investors ponder position

President Donald Trump supports Medicare drug price negotiations, his spokesman said Tuesday, remarks that sent pharmaceutical stocks swinging again as investors tried to assess whether drugmakers will be forced into bidding wars for government business.

From Emily Rogalski; The Hill ~ Feb 07, 2017

As debates of whether to revise or dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA) intensify, there is an opportunity to have meaningful discussions about innovative ways to deliver healthcare.

In the current system, magic bullet solutions are incentivized while approaches that take time to pay off are undervalued. Atul Gawande emphasized this sentiment in his recent article, “The Heroism of Incremental Care” and subsequent NPR interview, where he described a need for shifting attention towards lifelong incremental medicine rather than just rewarding rescue medicine.

By June Simmons, NA; Forbes ~ Feb 06, 2017

(Next Avenue invited all our 2016 Influencers in Aging to write essays about the one thing they would like to change about aging. This is one of the essays.)

When I was born, a person could reasonably assume a life expectancy of somewhere around 65, just two years more than the current average age of retirement. Speed forward to 2017, and life expectancy is 78.8 years, nearly a decade and a half longer.