Tag: Carol Levine

  • Living in the Land of Limbo

    This is not an impartial review. I’m a great admirer of Carol Levine’s work on family caregiving. Though we’ve never met in person, Carol has written seven terrific posts for Over 65. But despite my conflict of interest, I guarantee that if you read Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Family…

  • Who’s Responsible for Granny?

    On July 30, 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill that created Medicare, he outlined an ethical vision for the nation’s obligations to its older citizens. “No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine,” he said. “No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have…

  • Aging in Place in a Bleak Landscape

    Somewhere near the middle of Alexander Payne’s new movie Nebraska, a young boy rides up on a bicycle to take a photo of Woody Grant for the local newspaper.  Woody has, or so he believes, won a million dollars in a merchandising sweepstakes. He has become a celebrity in Hawthorne, the small fictional Nebraska town…

  • Don’t Hide Behind HIPAA to Avoid Communicating with Caregivers!

     In May, Carol Levine posted about how HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) interferes with caregiving for the elderly by leading many health professionals to refuse to communicate with families and others involved in care of the elderly. Carol subsequently interviewed Leon Rodriguez, director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department…

  • How HIPAA Interferes with Caregiving for the Elderly

    Although it was not the intent of the law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) has been interpreted and misapplied as a barrier to communication with the very people who have a deep and often lifelong relationship with elderly  patients  and who will be responsible for managing or providing care in…

  • Amour or Love Among the Ruins

    Nominated for five Academy Awards, Amour is a film about love and death. (Read no further if you haven’t seen the film and don’t want to know who dies and how.) The setting is Paris, the language French, but any resemblance to a conventional French film about light-hearted romance or a ménage a trois ends…

  • Are You Still Working?

    Though a newcomer to the blogosphere, Over 65 has already attracted media attention.  A few weeks ago, a network news staffer contacted The Hastings Center trying to find a woman over 65 who is still working for an interview the following day. Susan Gilbert, Hastings public affairs and communications manager, contacted me that night and…

  • Our Children, Our Caregivers?

    In a Huffington Post blog Ann Brenoff asked, “Is childlessness felt more when you hit middle age?” Her premise was that many childless people (i.e., women) worry that by having chosen not to have children in their 20s and 30s, they closed off the possibility of having a caregiver in their old age. Earlier Jane…