From PMD Staff; Money Digest ~ May 05, 2016

Many retirement savers focus on the big things, and rightfully so. Building and following a budget, no matter your income level, is a big thing. So is establishing financial goals that make sense, along with an investing strategy that helps you reach those goals.

Where many of us lose our way is with what may seem like little things; but it’s those little things that can kill either your budget or your overall financial strategy. Why? Because retirement planning isn’t a short-term endeavor, nor is it a simple process.

By Stephanie Armour; The Wall Street Journal ~ May 05, 2016

An Obama administration proposal to reduce Medicare’s profit incentives to doctors who administer drugs is drawing such intense congressional criticism that some policy analysts question whether it will survive intact.

Dozens of House Republicans are demanding the proposal be withdrawn, and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee are raising concerns with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the program. The pushback is growing in advance of a May 9 deadline for public comments.

By Jason Notte; Main St ~ May 05, 2016

U.S. workers are worried about the costs of long-term care, but they still don’t know what they are.

According to a survey by long-term care insurance provider Genworth, which clearly has a stake in the outcome, 70% of people over 65 will need long-term care. However, based on a survey of wealthy investors by financial firm UBS Wealth Management, 77% have not set funds aside for future medical expenses, and just 8% have received advice on managing future healthcare costs.

From News Wire Feed; Light Reading ~ May 05, 2016

WASHINGTON, DC — Doubling its military hiring commitment, AT&T* has announced it plans to hire an additional 10,000 veterans for a total of 20,000 by 2020. This commitment was announced at today’s White House Joining Forces event, along with more than 50 other companies dedicated to hiring and training veterans and military spouses.

From KHN Morning Briefing; Kaiser Health News ~ May 04, 2016

Only heart disease and cancer take more lives than medical errors in America, and the exact toll is unknown because the coding system used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to record death certificate data doesn’t capture things like communication breakdowns, diagnostic errors and poor judgment that cost lives, says a new study in the journal BMJ.

By Jack Craver; BenefitsPRO ~ May 04, 2016

Three-quarters of Americans say they are concerned about health care costs rising next year.

Given how rapidly the cost of health care has risen in the past decade, it’s not surprising that many are anxious about future price increases. But the survey from TransUnion finds evidence that even more people are concerned about rising costs than last year.

By Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D. and Maura Calsyn, Huffington Post – May 2, 2016

A patient in your average doctor’s office, Ms. Myers, has rheumatoid arthritis. Her physician, Dr. Jones, administers an injectable immunotherapy drug, Remicade, as her treatment. Medicare pays Dr. Jones 106 percent of the average sales price (ASP) for the drug, which comes to more than $3,000 every two months. The extra six percent is supposed to cover the drug’s ordering, tracking, storing, and processing, as well as to account for the variation in prices that drug companies charge different doctors.

By Jenifer McKim & Koby Levin; Weymouth News ~ May 01, 2016

Kenneth and Sadako Miller were struggling to pay their bills six years ago when they saw a TV commercial that seemed to provide an answer to their financial woes.

The elderly couple, a disabled Vietnam veteran and his Japanese-born wife, called the number on the screen and soon obtained a government-insured reverse mortgage – a product marketed as a way to turn the value of your home into cash payments without a sale, and still live in it.

From Mike Patton; Forbes ~ Apr 27, 2016

Americans are inundated with bad news on a daily basis. The saying, “If it bleeds, it leads,” is certainly true in the ratings-dependent media universe. Sadly, a constant barrage of overtly negative news can increase stress and have a damaging effect on the human psyche. The result could be a myriad of psychoses at worst and a generally negative attitude at best. With this backdrop, what financial issues do Americans worry about the most?

By Rebecca Moore; Plansponsor ~ Apr 21, 2016

With relatively flat fertility rates, rising longevity and 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 70 every day, America is becoming a “gerontocracy,” says Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Age Wave in San Francisco.

Dychtwald believes that anyone wishing to be our next president should indicate their knowledge of and priorities regarding the medical, scientific, economic, employment, infrastructure and intergenerational dimensions of this coming demographic transformation. He believes there are five essential trans-partisan issues that must be addressed, that were not covered in any debate.