Caregiving Story Hits Home

I just read your July Cover Story ("Taking Care") and wanted to commend you for helping to get this important message out to the membership. The costs and stress of caregiving can destroy the lives of retirees if they do not plan for such events. My wife and I are up to our necks with these issues with both sets of parents. This type of story--with the proper balance between personal anecdotes and factual presentation--will go a long way toward connecting with the membership on this critical issue of caregiving.

Joseph Blanchette
Charlotte, Vermont

Reaching Active Members

I'm writing to tell you how pleased I am with the new format of This Active Life. Is there any way we can get articles from This Active Life published in NEA Today, the magazine for active members? Doing so would inform the Active members that retired issues are intergenerational; it could also be a vehicle to get Actives to pre-enroll in NEA-Retired.

Gerald Martin
Franklin, Wisconsin

Editor--Printed in a brand new format beginning this month, NEA Today will continue to cover stories about issues facing retired members. We'll also regularly includes stories about retired members who are making a difference. For example, check out the September NEA Today for a story on Texas member Fran Valenzuela's fight against the Social Security offsets and a profile of South Carolina retiree Fannie Simmons. Both stories appeared first in This Active Life.

Don't Call On Me

The Federal Trade Commission says more than 26 million Americans have signed up for the service to have their telephone numbers removed from telemarketers' call lists. Retirees should be particularly wary of telemarketers, since many scam artists target seniors with unsolicited phone calls. (For more, see the May 2003 This Active Life cover story.) To add your information to the Do Not Call List, call toll-free 888-382-1222 or go to www.donotcall.gov.

Contributions

This Active Life wants to serve as a forum for members to express their issues and concerns. We'd like to hear more from you. In particular:

• Write a Letter to the Editor to comment on--or take issue with--something you read in the magazine. You can also offer your ideas and insights on education topics not directly covered in the magazine, such as school reform.

• Suggest names of NEA-Retired members in your community or state whose activism or hobbies merit mention in the People section or other pages.

• Tell us about notable accomplishments in your locale that stem from Retired and Active members working together in concert.

In addition, we'd especially appreciate hearing from you over the next month if you'd like to contribute to an upcoming story on grandparenting. Many grandparents are now playing a role raising grandchildren. What are the joys and pitfalls of this arrangement? How has it altered your ideas about life in retirement?

Please send your ideas to John O'Neil, Editor, This Active Life, NEA Communications, 1201 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036; 202/822-7223; joneil@nea.org.

News Flashes

Health Care Worries
Americans are far more worried about paying for health care than they are about being a victim of a terrorist attack or losing money in the stock market, a new poll shows. The survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than one-third of Americans are concerned about health care costs. Their key health care worry? That their health insurance plan will be more concerned about saving money for the plan than about what care is best for them.

Lobbying for Dollars
Another reason the cost of prescription drugs remains high: the army of lobbyists hired by drug manufacturers to represent their interests on Capitol Hill. A new report by Public Citizen found that the drug industry spent $91 million on lobbying in 2002, up 12 percent from 2001. Public Citizen also reported that in 2002, a down year for corporate profitability, the top 10 drug companies reported profits of $36 billion--more than half of all profits earned by Fortune 500 companies.

Nursing Home Costs Up
The average price of nursing homecare has risen to $181 per dy, an 8-percent jump since last year, according to a survey by the Mature Market Institute. Prices vary considerably across the United States. Nursing home care in Alaska runs $420 per day, compared to $96 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Care by a home health aide averages $18 per hour nationally.

Medigap Premiums Vary
Consumers continue to pay widely varying premiums for Medigap plans, according to a survey by Weiss Ratings, Inc. For Plan A, which offers the least coverage, Weiss found premiums offered by providers ranged from $352 to $2,850. It pays to shop around, Weiss says. For more information on the study, see www.weissratings.com.