Saul Friedman

Saul Friedman column

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  An Armey of one marshals forces against Medicare

  The former Republican congressman who helped privatize Medicare has found a new way to undermine

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  3.6M older Americans living in poverty

  3.6 million Americans 65 years and older are living in poverty; this doesn't count those

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  Gray matters: Older readers write their experiences

  Myrna Morgenstern of Elmont, a widow in her 70s, is a former college librarian who

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  Will health care reform help those on Medicare?

  Most of the proposals would strengthen Medicare and level the premium-paying field.

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  Turning life insurance policies into cash

  Some longtime policy holders are taking "life settlements" for the cash and to end the

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  Gray Matters: An 'un-American' Medicare recipient

  For health care, I participate in a dreaded "public option," Medicare, and have done so

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  Lack of preventive care has human and financial costs

  Glitch in Medicare Part D drug rules makes getting vaccine to prevent painful shingles very

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  Gray Matters: A way to fix Medicare Advantage disparities

  This is a good time to explain again the glaring disparity in federal payments to

• Gray matters: Medicare oxygen policy short of breadth

  Medicare is saving money by forgetting that taxpayers are also patients.

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  Gray matters: Thoughts on writing

  It's a good time in these days of summer doldrums to change the subject and

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  Gray Matters: Don't fear health care reform

  The good news for older Americans out of the health care tumult is President Barack

• Gray Matters: Reverse mortgages are still safe

  To hear Sen. Claire McCaskill talk about federally insured reverse mortgages, you'd think the popular

• Gray Matters: Aging doesn't mean you have to stop traveling

  Here is a myth that needs dispelling: By the time you can afford to travel,

• Gray Matters: Beware illegal Social Security garnishment

  An old problem is back, mostly because this recession has made banks and creditors more

• Gray Matters: No cost-of-living raise? It's an outrage

  Here is a sample of the outrage over word that, for the first time, there

• GRAY MATTERS: Talking back on tattoos, taxes

  This one's for you - for readers who thought enough of

• GRAY MATTERS: If you're saying 'huh?' a lot, get checked for hearing loss

  Chances are you've never heard of

• GRAY MATTERS: Add long-term care for the aged to the national priority list

  How to prepare for the long-term care of the huge and

• GRAY MATTERS: Single-payer health care plan isn't socialism, but it is efficient

  I was surprised during a recent conference for care-

• Gray Matters: Why I've stayed married for 57 years

  'Who knew we'd get this far?"

• GRAY MATTERS: Ways for Congress to help seniors recoup their losses

  The House Education and Labor Committee, chaired by

• GRAY MATTERS: Old enough to get my ear pierced

  One of the advantages of getting old, all right, being

• GRAY MATTERS: Medicare Advantage needs to change - soon

  Tom B., of Lynbrook, personifies one of the more important

• GRAY MATTERS: Stimulus for health care ought to go to Medicaid, but will it?

  What a difference a year makes.

• GRAY MATTERS: Avoid geezer jokes, not only for self-esteem but for your health

  When someone writes and says he or she is

• GRAY MATTERS: Paulson could have bailed out seniors, but he waited too long

  Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but you should know that

• What's the future for Medicare and Social Security?

  The presidential inaugurations I've covered since 1969 have had a special meaning for me --

• GRAY MATTERS: Is it wrong to increase premiums based on age?

  Sandy K. of Freeport, who turned 75 in February, celebrated

• GRAY MATTERS: The basics of Medicare

  The most pressing issue for many who qualify for Medicare

• GRAY MATTERS: New Deal programs are still a good deal

  Social Security had its 73rd birthday in August, but there

• GRAY MATTERS: Social Security naysayers had a faulty crystal ball

  I can remember a dozen years ago, when the usual Chicken

• GRAY MATTERS: That lack of energy isn't due just to old age

  Here's another September, when horrors happen, wars begin,

• GRAY MATTERS: Reverse loans worth a look

  This week's column is devoted to the details of recently

• GRAY MATTERS: Age and the candidates

  A few weeks ago, I rejected age as an issue in the

• GRAY MATTERS: Summer's coming, relax

  The summer solstice, the beginning of summer in the

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  You've heard the tales, probably apocryphal, of elderly men

• GRAY MATTERS

  I am not a doctor, but I am a cancer survivor (so far),

• GRAY MATTERS

  John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're

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  The e-mail from the online investment journal, "The Motley

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  Two important issues for older residents of Nassau, Suffolk

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  Regular reader Martin Selig of Carle Place reminded me of a

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  Do you ever wonder if your grandchildren or even your

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  Several longtime readers, concerned about issues affecting

• GRAY MATTERS

  Here's what you need to know about New York State's

• Mind the gap

  Of all the cries of pain from deep in the Part D coverage

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  And the days dwindle down

• GRAY MATTERS

  I neglected to observe the recent anniversary of June 22,

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  Ann F., of Bellmore, writes on behalf of widows, widowers

• GRAY MATTERS

  Ruth M., from Smithtown, wishes the media would stop

• GRAY MATTERS

  We must be getting more mature.

• GRAY MATTERS

  In the 50-plus years that I have been covering civil rights

• GRAY MATTERS

  We haven't talked about seniors and computers for a while.

• GRAY MATTERS

  Of all the land mines and aggravation in Medicare Part D,

• GRAY MATTERS

  Retired CPA Murray Schiffman, 78, of Great Neck, is

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  The Republican Congress has given older Americans new and

• GRAY MATTERS

  If you're like everyone else I know, you've barely looked

• GRAY MATTERS

  In case you missed it, AARP

• GRAY MATTERS

  A reader's letter to one of our sister newspapers, The

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  On July 1, the first of the baby boomers reached the age of

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  It's time to decide whether to sign up for the new Medicare

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  During my absence, we celebrated - or at least observed -

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  In his flagging campaign to change Social Security into

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  Like it or not. Ready or not. If you're enrolled in

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  Unless things change, this will be the last year for

• No �granny goes to jail�: Medicaid planning is OK

  For a change, here is some good news for middle-class

• GRAY MATTERS

  It's time Gray Matters put up or shut up, instead of merely

• GRAY MATTERS

  Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are times we ought

• GRAY MATTERS

  There is some good news for thousands of stroke survivors

• The little-publicized, but helpful, reverse mortage

  There is perhaps no greater comfort than owning your home

• GRAY MATTERS

  The good news in the new Congressional Budget Office

• New York's drug plan may be better than the feds'

  It's worth repeating that low-income Medicare beneficiaries

• Questioning required IRA withdrawals

  The insistent letters from Albert Spencer of Levittown, who

• Medicare shenanigans keep on coming

  Medicare advocates have been having fun watching

• Down memory lane, with a few detours

  It's difficult to concentrate on serious things when the

• Advocate for the homeless sets sights on Medicare

  Bob Hayes probably would have been a zillionaire by now, a

• Women Rip Plan to End Medicaid for Spouses' Care

  Nothing haunts an older woman as much as the prospect of

• Nursing Home Caregivers Deserve Loving Care, Too

  I knew Susan Eaton only as a child, when her father, Bill,

• Devilish Details Mean New Medicare Headaches

  Comes now the fine print of the new Medicare privatization

• GRAY MATTERS: More Thoughts on Paying for Long-Term Care

  Continuing where we left off last week: It's difficult to

• Medicare Makeover: New Benefits, New Burdens

  If you think traditional Medicare is confusing, you ain't

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Making Sense Of Medicare Rules

  DESPITE Medicare's strengths, Susan S. of Huntington calls

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Taking Control Of Retirement Savings

  ONE CAN SENSE in letters like the one from Herman S. of

• FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Elderly Parents Deserve Freedom

  I MEAN no disrespect toward the millions of adult children

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Pills and Potions That Can Harm

  GETTING BACK to the business of healthy living, the federal

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Don't Ignore New Medicare Guide

  IF YOU'RE a Medicare beneficiary, do you know that your

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Coping With Fears Stirred by Sept. 11

  LET'S POSTPONE for another week our discussions of cosmic

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Attacks Sideline Health Care Plans

  COUNT AMONG the millions of other victims of Sept. 11 the

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Recovery Aid Won't Cut Into Benefits

  THE ELDERLY woman called in to C-Span to ask economist Dean

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Chase the Blues With Elderhostel

  AFTER THE EVENTS of this black September, here's one way to

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Crossing the Line Over Drug Prices

  THE FOOD AND Drug Administration has a long and admirable

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Checks in the Mail That Don't Add Up

  MOST OLDER AMERICANS, because of their relatively low

• FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / (Red) Hats Off to Them

  LET'S TAKE a break from the heavier concerns of aging, for

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Not Living Life In the Past Lane

  IN KEEPING with the interactive nature of "Gray Matters,"

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Grandparents Play Bigger Roles Today

  HERE IS ANOTHER blessing of longevity, and a defining

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIP / GRAY MATTERS / Converting Pensions Into 'Real' Money

  LET'S REVISIT the question I posed a couple of weeks ago on

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / A Time Squeeze On HMO Choices

  THANKS TO THE Bush administration's generosity toward

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Putting Too Much Stock in the Market

  WALL STREET, your broker, many employers and most investors

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Relieving the Pinch Of High Drug Costs

  FOR READERS who have angrily reported that their HMOs or

• PERSONAL FILE / FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / GRAY MATTERS / Finding the Spirit To Age Successfully

  WOULDN'T IT be nice if aging came with a set of

• FITNESS FILE / GRAY MATTERS / Waiting to See How Bush Treats Elders

  IF GEORGE W. Bush truly intends to be the healing president