RLTV - TV for Boomers and Older Individuals

Image via Wikipediaby Lowell Dempsey

There has been plenty of coverage lately on the importance of the youth vote on Election Day. It's as though politicians think older voters - one in three Americans - can be taken for granted.

The readers of Aging And Disability In America probably don't know John Erickson, but they should. John is the Chairman of RLTV and founder of Erickson Retirement Communities, and is leading the way in making sure that the voices of Americans 55 and older are heard.  People 55+ - and that includes John himself - make up one-third of America and care deeply about not only issues that affect them personally, but also how today's decisions will affect the future for their children and grandchildren.

John's rallying call to this powerful group of 70 million Americans can be found here:

http://johnerickson.tv

He's also led the way on RLTV with Prime Votes, an initiative to help inform boomers and seniors about the important issues in the mid-term elections.  Prime Votes features nightly updates with Sam Donaldson and John Palmer as well as two national forums hosted by Cokie Roberts to air this week on RLTV and C-SPAN.

More about Prime Votes, as well as John's discussion of many important national issues, can be found at the johnerickson.tv site. 

Kaiser Poll Finds We’re Still Divided on Health-Care Overhaul - Health Blog - WSJ

By Katherine Hobson

Sick of the polls tracking every twitch in the electorate’s views of the health-care overhaul law — which, we should add, has barely begun to be implemented?

So are we! So, we suspect, is everyone else! But the Kaiser Family Foundation is out with its last such poll before the Nov. 2 midterm elections, so it’s worth checking in — one more time — where things stand.

The folks at Kaiser find that members of the public are divided in their opinions about the law: 42% say they have generally favorable views, while 44% have generally unfavorable views. (Last month’s poll showed 49% in favor and 40% opposed.)

Those most likely to actually turn up at the polls, however, are “tilting towards the negative” on the law, which was signed nearly seven months ago.
Full Article

Crossroads County - In Fervor for Voting, Retirees Hold a Key - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeby Kirk Johnson

In an election year of hype and hyperbole, one fact resonates across all contests and candidates: in midterm elections, many people tune out and stay home, but older voters vote. It is a deeply rutted pattern in American history that could swing race after race.

“We’re calling them, we’re mailing them — they’re getting a tremendous amount of attention,” said Walt Klein, a longtime political consultant in Colorado who is working for Ken Buck, the Tea Party-backed Republican candidate for the Senate.
But politicians like Mr. Buck, in focusing on significant issues for retirees like Social Security and Medicare, are also finding that the picture is more complicated than a simple calculation that gray hair equates to a certain position on issue X or Y.
Full Article

Web Chat: Midterm Elections Mean Another Battle over Health Policy - Up Front Blog - Brookings Institution

Henry J. Aaron, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies

With the outcome of the rapidly approaching midterm elections unpredictable, the fate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) hangs in the balance. On October 13, Brookings expert Henry Aaron answered your questions about the high stakes surrounding health policy during the midterm elections in a live web chat moderated by David Mark, senior editor at POLITICO.
The transcript of this chat follows.
Transcript

AARP Survey: Needs on Key Issues Trump Partisan Divisions for Voters Age 50+

A new survey released today by AARP offers a closer look at the attitudes and priorities of AARP members heading into the 2010 midterm elections – and challenges some of the conventional wisdom about what will drive their votes.

“No one should be surprised that a political environment that has become increasingly more combative over the last few elections would yield some predictable partisan divisions among voters,” said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond. “The real story here is that at a time of growing partisanship, older Americans across the ideological spectrum share many of the same concerns on key issues and are demanding common-sense solutions from their elected leaders.
Full Article

What If Health Care Reform Unravels? Critics, States, Republicans Oppose Law, Funding - AARP Bulletin

by: Patricia Barry

President Obama and Democratic leaders claimed victory in March when the new health care law was enacted. But the bitter partisan and ideological war is far from over, and ongoing battles threaten to undermine it.

Twenty-one states are challenging the law in court on constitutional grounds. Voters in at least three other states are weighing ballot initiatives opposing it. And "repeal" has become the rallying cry of Republicans going into the midterm elections. Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has made it clear that if his party takes control of the House in November, "repealing this bill has to be our number one priority."

The Republican leadership's new agenda, "A Pledge to America," announced yesterday, also calls for the law to be repealed and replaced with a scaled-down list of provisions. These include medical malpractice reform and expanding health savings accounts.

Where is the law vulnerable and could it be overturned? If so, what would be the consequences for the country and individual Americans?
Full Article

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New York City Candidates Beat a Path to Senior Centers - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: September 11, 2009

At the busy Hamilton Senior Center in Manhattan on Wednesday, there was belly dancing in the morning, strength training in the afternoon and, in between, a visit from yet another politician.
Read More

Record Number of People with Disabilities Voted in 2008 Election

New numbers released show Americans with disabilities voted in record numbers in the 2008 presidential election, according to the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the country’s largest cross-disability membership organization.

According to a study by Lisa Schur and Douglas Kruse, professors at the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University, who have conducted numerous studies on voting and people with disabilities, 3.8 million more people with disabilities voted in the 2008 presidential election than the 2000 presidential election.

According to the study, 14.7 million Americans with disabilities voted in the 2008 presidential election. About 10.9 million Americans with disabilities voted in the 2000 presidential election.

“The 2002 passage of the Help America Vote Act, which mandates voting be accessible, created enormous energy in the disability community,” said AAPD’s Vice President for Organizing and Civic Engagement Jim Dickson. AAPD has been leading nonpartisan voter registration and education drives amongst the nation’s 56 million people with disabilities since 2001.

Complete Press Release

The Genetic Privacy of Presidential Candidates

Robert C. Green, M.D., M.P.H., and George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H. in the New England Journal of Medicine Volume 359:2192-2193 November 20, 2008 Number 21

In the wake of the often bitter presidential election, with its emphasis on negative campaigning and intermittent controversies over the release of candidates' health information, it is not too soon to begin planning for the next presidential campaign. By then, advances in genomics will make it more likely that DNA will be collected and analyzed to assess genetic risk information that could be used for or, more likely, against presidential candidates.

Since 1972, when George McGovern was forced to replace his vice-presidential running mate, Thomas Eagleton, after it was revealed that he had been hospitalized for depression, the health status of presidential candidates has been seen by the press as fair game.1 More recently, historians have discovered that some presidential candidates, including Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy, misled the public about their health status and that illness may have adversely affected their ability to perform their duties.

In this year's election, Senator John McCain, who had released extensive medical records in 1999, released an additional 1100 pages of records but gave reporters only a few hours to review them. President-Elect Barack Obama released an undated one-page "medical summary" to the press. News organizations pressed for more details, in the belief that the public has a right to know about a candidate's risk of future disease as an important indication of fitness for office. Although the presence of a disease or health condition is the most salient factor in the prediction of future health, medicine's ability to define levels of risk for individuals is expanding to include family history (a proxy for genetic predispositions to many diseases) and genetic markers.

Family history was used by the McCain campaign, which highlighted the energy and mental sharpness of McCain's 95-year-old mother, in an attempt to counter the notion that McCain's age might be associated with diminished vigor or cognitive function. Little was said about the death of his father and grandfather of heart attacks at 70 and 61 years of age, respectively. By the same token, the Obama campaign remained silent about the death of Obama's grandfather from prostate cancer, which indicates that Obama's own risk is higher than average.

During future campaigns, presidential candidates could release information about parts of their own genomes in order to highlight what might be considered a favorable ethnic background or, if they have already had a disease such as cancer, to highlight the absence of genes that confer a risk of recurrence. But in a climate of negative personal and political messages, it is more likely that persons or groups opposing a candidate will release such information, hoping to harm his or her chances for election or reelection.

continue

A Butler Well Served by This Election

By Wil HaygoodWashington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 7, 2008 For more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land. He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week. He was there while America's racial history was being remade: Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock school crisis, the 1963 March on Washington, the cities burning, the civil rights bills, the assassinations. When he started at the White House in 1952, he couldn't even use the public restrooms when he ventured back to his native Virginia. "We had never had anything," Allen, 89, recalls of black America at the time. "I was always hoping things would get better." In its long history, the White House -- just note the name -- has had a complex and vexing relationship with black Americans.

Change of the Season #1

While there have been signs of the quadrennial season change for several months, those signs have intensified during the last month. Some have been largely unnoticeable -- until the evening of November 4th and the morning of November 5th. The evening of November 4th, I served as one of the volunteer ushers at the Woolly Mammouth Theatre. It was “Pay What You Can Night” for the new production Boom. Normally on “Pay What You Can” nights, all seats are sold out as well as all standing room. On this night, I estimate that only 100 people were in attendance. Clearly more people were interested in the election results than in the play. Shortly after 11:00 pm Eastern, people began walking down my street shouting and cheering and cars drove by honking. This celebrating went on all night long. My neighborhood (Penn Quarter/China Town 7th Street) was not the only District neighborhood to erupt in spontaneous celebrations. A larger outpouring happened along U Street entertainment district which closed the street to traffic. Even more amazing was the gathering in front of the White House celebrating the Obama victory. During my 20 years living here, I cannot recall similar spontaneous celebrations for an election victory. The celebration in front of the White House appears to have been a “first.”

The Celebration in Front of the White House

The other election surprise was that only 93% of the votes cast in the District of Columbia were for Obama.

On my daily walks, I see other signs of change:

• In the last month, Pennsylvania Avenue has been repaved from the Capitol to the White House.
• The pavers in the crosswalks have been painted brick red.
• The repairs on the Lafayette Square (across the street from the White House) fountains have been completed and the statues are being cleaned.
• Last week construction began on the parade reviewing stands in front of the White House.
• Yesterday, one of the intersections a block from my apartment was blocked by the infamous “Jersey barriers” and a collection of Secret Service police and DC police vehicles. Other security enhancements were underway. On the evening news, it was reported one of the buildings on this corner will house the Obama transition offices.
• There were larger than normal crowds huddled in front of the Newseum to read the front pages of 60 newspapers from across the United States and around the world. The front pages were remarkably alike with a headline on the Obama victory and a color photograph covering half to two-thirds of the page.

• Construction of the inaugural platform on the west side of Capitol has begun.
• Along Independence Avenue, d. engineers were reviewing and verifying the engineering and street marking diagrams in preparation for the street repaving. (Independence Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue are the two major routes to the Capitol through the monumental core of the District.)
• People look happier.
• As I listen to conversations among people on the street, in building lobbies and eateries, they are saying to one another how much better they feel, how they feel happier than they have in a long time, a weight has been lifted off their shoulders.
• The people gathered in front of the White House yesterday were not the usual tour groups but small groups of people in business attire talking quietly, taking pictures of the White House and of each other.
• The Willard Hotel announces that all of its guest rooms/suites have been reserved during the inaugural period. Other hotels report they are receiving large volumes of calls to reserve rooms and that they are reviewing their “pricing” strategies. (NOTE to my friends and relatives, my quest accommodations (sofa bed and floor) have been requested and reserved).

Yes We Can Change We Can Believe In

More thoughts on change in a day or two.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Thoughts on Change

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Washington State Could Let Terminally Ill Patients Take Lethal Drug Doses

Posted by Jacob Goldstein in the Wall Street Journal Health Blog Voters in Washington State will decide on Tuesday whether to allow dying patients to get a prescription for medicine to commit suicide. Here’s the complete text of the initiative, known as Measure 1000. The measure would apply to patients who are mentally competent and have a life expectancy of less than six months. Patients would have to request the lethal dose once, then go through a 15-day waiting period, then make the request again both orally and in writing. Two doctors must approve the request, and the patient must be the one to take the dose (it can’t be administered by a doctor). This Seattle Times story gives a more detailed overview of the requirements.

109-year-old Bastrop woman casts her vote by mail

By Joshunda Sanders- Austin AMERICAN-STATESMAN Staff

Amanda Jones, 109, the daughter of a man born into slavery, has lived a life long enough to touch three centuries. And after voting consistently as a Democrat for 70 years, she has voted early for the country's first black presidential nominee.

The middle child of 13, Jones, who is African American, is part of a family that has lived in Bastrop County for five generations. The family has remained a fixture in Cedar Creek and other parts of the county, even when its members had to eat at segregated barbecue dives and walk through the back door while white customers walked through the front, said Amanda Jones' 68-year-old daughter, Joyce Jones.

Amanda Jones' father urged her to exercise her right to vote, despite discriminatory practices at the polls and poll taxes meant to keep black and poor people from voting. Those practices were outlawed for federal elections with the 24th Amendment in 1964, but not for state and local races in Texas until 1966.

Amanda Jones says she cast her first presidential vote for Franklin Roosevelt, but she doesn't recall which of his four terms that was. When she did vote, she paid a poll tax, her daughters said. That she is able, for the first time, to vote for a black presidential nominee for free fills her with joy, Jones said.

One of Amanda Jones' 33 grandchildren, Brenda Baker, 44, said the family is moved by the election's significance to the matriarch.

Jones is part of a small percentage of active voters above the age of 100 in the state — and the country.

Secretary of State spokeswoman Ashley Burton said Texas can't confirm whether Jones is the state's oldest active voter because there is too much voter information to sort through. At the county level, there are other challenges. An election official in Hays County said its records are not searchable by age, and Bastrop County elections administrator Nora Cano said that some counties automatically list voters who were born before the turn of the 20th century with birth dates of January 1900.
The oldest active voter in Travis County is 105, officials said, and in Williamson County the oldest is 106 — making Jones the oldest-known active voter in Central Texas.

Elias Cohen: My Last Election? My Grandchildren’s First.

Posted by Dr. Bill Thomas in the Changing Aging Blog Elias S. Cohen is a legendary figure in the history of our culture's struggle to understand the importance of self-determination for all people. He reflects on the past the, the present and our shared future and offers us the insights of a true Elder: "In November two of my four grandchildren will vote for President of the U.S. and members of Congress for the first time. And I, and some of my friends and relatives may cast our votes for the last time. As Dr. Samuel Johnson said, “Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Voting in what Ithink may well be my last election certainly concentrates my mind. It feels. like making out a will---what is the bounty I leave to my grandchildren? For me, my vote will shape my legacy, the kind of country I want to leave to my grandchildren. I want to leave them a country that is not governed by ideologues and theologically based ideas, but rather by those who believe in civil rights, self-determination, respect for the widest range of belief systems, ethical principles, and evolving Constitutional law in this nation of immigrants and native born, drawn from the races and ethnic groups from around the world. I want my vote to re-establish credible and even inspiring leadership from the Office of the President as a hallmark of the most powerful position in the world. I want my grandchildren to look to the President with pride in his commitment to science and knowledge, ethical precepts, and the spirit of the law that has served us so well in the past. I want my grandchildren to live in a country whose national treasure and national conscience is devoted to preserving our countryside, our environment, and our rich variety of communities, services, and utilities. I want them to live in a country that does not squander our natural and economic resources and our unique American spirit on destructive wars, present and future. I want to leave my grandchildren a country whose government is at its best when it strikes poverty, disease, homelessness, unemployment and despair rater than a government that believes it should get out of the way of rampant and wanton economic exploitation of our markets, our environment, and the consuming public---an irrational belief in the magical hand of a free and unfettered market. And I want my grandchildren, when they to travel the world to know that they are representatives of a country viewed as a champion of human rights, equality, and opportunity rather than a country whose government’s blunders devastate countries, killing tens of thousands of civilians and causing the emigration of thousands from their homes. I want them to inherit a country whose leaders eschew “wars of choice” based upon unfounded speculations and blind strategies---a leaders who will spare them from other wars in which they and their children will be called upon to fight and pay for.Let them live in a country where they can afford to send their children to a post-high school education demanded by a technologically advanced society. Let them live in a country in which they can achieve a decent income, acquire sufficient resources capable of protecting them from unanticipated economic failure or erosion of monetary value, and protection from the economic assault of disease, disability, or chronic ailments. I want to leave them a country that will assure them a country better protected from assaults on civil liberties than the one I will die in. Next year more than five and half million of my age peers---those 75 and over will die. And over the following three years most of the rest of them will leave the voter registration rolls. For us, for them, this is the last opportunity to shape the legacy we would leave our grandchildren. This may well be my last vote for a President and Vice President of this remarkable country. In casting it, I will have my children and their children in the forefront of my thought and prayers."