Senior Voice -

Getting older in America will never be the same, after the astonishing death toll in nursing homes and senior housing facilities has revealed just how flawed the nation’s system of care is. The fallout could completely collapse the nursing home...

With social distancing, depression, isolation and loneliness hitting the nation’s seniors particularly hard as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has made big changes to Medicare to help doctors reach patients easier witho...

Despite a genuine consensus that something must be done, Congressional efforts to rein in drug prices remain stalled and more than likely dead until after the November elections. Even with rhetoric rising on how important controlling drug prices is...

President Donald Trump recently has been making a striking claim – insisting he has ensured that people with preexisting medical conditions continue to have health insurance coverage. In tweets, at campaign rallies and even at his recent State of...

Congressional lawmakers find themselves caught between the unlikely and the impossible as they try and work through complicated issues like drug price controls. With the sharp partisan divide, the ongoing impeachment of President Trump, the upcoming...

While President Trump has not had much success on the drug price reform front, his administration is making modest progress on a different front – announcing two regulatory changes that Trump hopes will provide more easy-to-read price information t...

The Trump administration has proposed to overhaul decades-old Medicare rules that were originally meant to counter self-dealing and financial kickbacks among medical providers such as hospitals, clinics and doctors. But the administration says these...

The numbers are simply staggering. People 85 and older – who usually have multiple chronic illnesses or have difficulty performing some daily tasks – will mushroom to 14.6 million in 2040, up from about 6 million now. So who is going to take...

Congress is making its end-of-year legislative sprint, with hot-button health care legislation stuck behind critical must-pass spending bills before a government shutdown. But lawmakers often push shutdowns off with temporary all-inclusive spending...

If you think America's college loan crisis – with more than $1.5 trillion worth of debt – is only a young person's problem, think again. The federal government is now garnishing the fixed-income Social Security benefits of seniors in its...

The old baseball star Satchel Paige is supposed to have said: Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind it does not matter. On Capitol Hill, old seems to be the new young. In the House of Representatives, the top three leaders are...

Congressional Democrats are pushing an ambitious plan to expand Social Security and put it on a sustained long-term footing in an effort to overturn 20 years of attempts by congressional Republicans to scale back entitlement programs like Medicare...

House Democrats, Senate Republicans and the Trump administration agree on one thing – that drug prices must be lowered. Both parties are working through the ideas to reduce prescription drug costs, but the problem is finding common ground and...

The formidable pharmaceutical industry wants to recoup the $11.8 billion hit it took earlier this year in Congress’s 2018 budget deal. The drugmakers rarely lose, able to use clout and pressure in every House and Senate district to get what they...

Congress managed to pass well-intentioned legislation recently allowing people with life-threatening illnesses to bypass the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to obtain experimental medications. Unfortunately, it won’t do much to help the people...

Drug prices in the United States are too high – nearly everyone agrees. But political consensus stops at how to lower prices and fix the problem. If it were easy, a simple solution would be found. But paying for prescription drugs is a complicated...

Lawmakers defend the federal budget, passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump at the end of March, by repeating a quotation attributed to Otto von Bismarck: "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being...

Recently I needed some medical records sent from my previous doctor to a new specialist. I was stunned when this thoroughly modern medical practice told me the only way they could send them quickly was with a fax machine. When was the last time you...

Your new Medicare ID card will be arriving the old-fashioned way, via the US Postal Service. If you barely glance at your mail before you throw it in the garbage because of a deluge of junk mail, be on the lookout for this one. Starting in April and...

The frenetic pandemonium of Donald Trump’s first year as president has overshadowed his administration’s efforts through executive orders and regulation changes to reshape American life. Stymied by his failure to win congressional approval for...

With the tax bill signed into law, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has set his sights on reforming Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and welfare in 2018. But he will have to overcome several big barriers to be successful, including reversing...

In the nation’s capital, where politicians are always wearing partisan political jerseys, the nomination of Alex Azar to be the new Health and Human Services Secretary may offer the hope of a fresh start on health care issues. President Trump’s...

The Trump administration is planning to end another Obama-era regulation involving nursing homes, which was designed to shield the elderly from unscrupulous, abusive or bad nursing home practices. At the end of the Obama administration, the Centers f...