Feds, States Should Do More To Uncover Severity Of Elder Financial Abuse, Urges GAO

by Ted Knutson

The federal government and the states should do more to uncover the severity of elder financial abuse, the Government Accountability Office urges in a report released today.

Comprehensive data on the costs of financial exploitation does not exist, but GAO notes some studies have put it in the billions.

The abuse can undermine the ability of older adults to support and care for themselves, which can negatively affect their health, and shift the burden of caring for them to family members or society in general, GAO warns.

The problem is expected to get worse with the aging of the Baby Boomers. By 2030, more than 20 percent of Americans will be 65 or over compared to 13 percent in 2010.

The study notes when older adults are financially exploited by trusted others (such as family, friends, or guardians) or by strangers, the money is rarely recovered.

Acknowledging a barrier that is commonly voiced by senior citizen advocates in determining the severity of the problem, GAO researchers say state adult protective services officials told them victims often are reluctant to implicate others, especially family members or other caregivers.

Another obstacle is adult protective services caseworkers frequently face challenges obtaining and interpreting financial documents, and may not have access to forensic accountants, who might be able to determine how money has been lost and how it can be recovered.

Additionally, caseworkers told GAO said they often have difficulty acquiring financial records from banks that could help verify the costs of financial exploitation.

“Some financial exploitation cases can be extremely complicated because of multiple accounts, asset transfers, complex annuities, and more,” the study explains.

The study explained elder financial exploitation may take a variety of forms from a caregiver or family member stealing money or medications off a victim’s dresser to charging items for their personal use to a victim’s credit card to a legal guardian withdrawing funds from the victim’s bank account to a scam that entices a victim to share bank information or wire money.

While the dollar figure of elder abuse harm is unknow, more state adult protective offices are reporting the frequency of the exploitation to Washington.

Since they began providing data to the Department of Health and Human Service’s National Adult Maltreatment Reporting System (NAMRS) in 2017 voluntarily, the number of states providing financial exploitation data of any kind has risen from 30 in Fiscal 2016 to 39 in Fiscal 2019.

During the same period, states giving NAMRS detailed financial exploitation case data climbed from 17 to 24.

At the same time, detailed case data on type of perpetrator for all types of abuse rose from 21 to 27.

To uncover the financial toll, GAO is urging HHS’s Administration for Community Living to add cost figures to the NAMRS reports.

The study was requested by Senate Aging Committee Chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Ranking Democrat Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania)

The full 80-page report:

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Feds, States Should Do More To Uncover Severity Of Elder Financial Abuse, Urges GAO

Michigan Radio’s Sarah Cwiek wins Advancement of Justice Award for investigative story

By Suzanne Belanger

Michigan Radio reporter Sarah Cwiek has been selected as a winner of a 2020 Wade H. McCree Award for the Advancement of Justice by the Michigan Press Association Foundation.  Cwiek was recognized for her story, “They say their son needs to be in a psychiatric hospital. He went to jail instead” from February, 2019.

This story highlights the impossible situation in which some families with autistic children find themselves: stuck in a loop of emergency rooms and police encounters, in a state that makes it all but impossible to get a child admitted to inpatient psychiatric medical care.

The McCree Awards recognize journalism that examines, explains, exposes and details important issues in law and government.  The award is named after distinguished Michigan attorney Wade H. McCree, who served as judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Solicitor General of the United States.

The Advancement of Justice awards were established in 1974 in a collaborative effort between the State Bar of Michigan and the Michigan Press Association.  The Michigan Press Association Foundation was created in 1980 to further the interests of journalism in Michigan.

Other winners of a 2020 McCree Award were Reporter Karen Bouffard of the Detroit News for an in-depth investigation “Healing Justice” which showed America’s underinvestment in mental health services, and the enormous expense of incarceration; and Reporter Heather Catallo of WXYZ for an in-depth investigation “Guardianship Epidemic: I just want my parents back.”  Her reporting showed that as baby boomers age, guardianship abuse is increasingly becoming a bigger problem across the country.

The awards are presented annually to the winners at the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame ceremony, held each spring, but which has been moved to a later date to be determined.

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Michigan Radio’s Sarah Cwiek wins Advancement of Justice Award for investigative story

Who will make life or death decisions for increasing number elderly without family?

Syda Productions | Shutterstock

Aging baby boom generation, increase in elderly living alone, with dementia, present challenges for health care givers

As the Baby Boom generation ages, the population of elderly with dementia expands and the number of seniors who live on their own increases, experts are predicting a growing problem with “unrepresented patients” in hospitals.

The problem for health care givers involves the question of who will make important decisions for such patients, who have no close relatives or friends.

If a patient is in a coma, for example, who will be responsible for deciding life-support systems should continue?

“Unrepresented patients are those who have no surrogate or advance directive to guide medical decision making for them when they become incapacitated,” explains Scott J. Schweikart, in an article in the AMA Journal of Ethics.

Schweikart has identified three different approaches in various state laws and institutional policies: a physician approach, an ethics committee approach, and a guardianship approach.

“The model of allowing the physician to be the ultimate decision maker is the main approach,” writes Schweikart, a senior research associate for the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. “Some states allow physicians to act as decision makers until a guardian can be appointed. … Some states directly empower physicians to make decisions for unrepresented patients, like North Carolina, which will allow physicians to make end-of-life decisions for unrepresented patients without court approval as long as reasonable efforts are made to find a surrogate.”

In the ethics committee approach, hospital ethics committees help make decisions for unrepresented patients by deliberating and then offering a recommendation, Schweikart said. Quoting Thaddeus Mason Pope, of the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, he said the advantage of an ethics committee is that it can “offer various perspectives and can utilize a multifaceted array of both medical and ethical considerations,” in contrast to a single decision maker, such as a physician or guardian, who may be subject to financial incentives or bias.

Finally, if a court determines that an individual lacks capacity to make decisions, it might appoint a guardian with legal authority to make decisions for that person. Some experts see this approach as being costly, time consuming, and overly cumbersome. Guardians often are not adequately trained and do not know the patient.

Schweikart finds that debate among ethicists about the best approach tends to focus on the physician and ethics committee models. Those who support the physician approach argue that doctors’ knowledge and skill, coupled with their fiduciary duties to the patient, make them ideal decision makers for the unrepresented. Those who support the ethics committee model believe that such panels are less susceptible to conflicts and biases than physicians.

“A recent development in hospital policy and law is a tiered approach, which applies aspects of both the physician and the ethics committee approach in decision making for unrepresented patients,” Schwikart notes:

In the tiered approach, treatments and procedures are assessed and assigned to one of 3 risk categories—low-risk or routine treatment, major medical treatment, or life-sustaining treatment—as a basis for decision-making policy. For example, a physician may make decisions regarding low-risk treatments that are routine and in keeping with accepted medical practice standards. For medium-risk procedures that would normally require written informed consent, a physician might be required to consult with another physician or an ethics committee. The highest-risk or highest-stakes procedure, typically deemed to be withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatment, might require a physician to get approval and consensus from an ethics committee. These examples give a rough sketch as to how a tiered approach might function—the exact parameters and requirements vary. For example, Colorado, New York State, and Montana have instituted statutes with a tiered approach similar to that just described. The Cleveland Clinic has also generated a similar institutional policy based on 3 risk categories: routine care, decisions for which informed consent would ordinarily be needed, and decisions about withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment.

Schwikart concludes that a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to the problem of unrepresented patients, although imperfect, is preferable to a unilateral approach.

“As Jennifer Moye [professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School] et al argue, ‘collaboration is key to illuminate their [unrepresented patients’] needs and rights,’ while providing a ‘menu of options’ that involves all 3 of the major decision-making approaches: physicians, ethics committees, and guardianship. Taking this collaborative approach (which includes guardianship) and combining it with a tiered approach (which strikes a balance between physicians and ethics committees) creates a multifaceted decision-making method, involving layers of options and ethical safeguards, thus making it likely the best possible solution to this most vexing of bioethical quandaries.”

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Who will make life or death decisions for increasing number elderly without family?

Retired and broke: Bankruptcy filings surging for seniors

Mark Molnar cleans a restroom in an RV park in Trenton, Maine. Molnar and his wife, Joanne, are "workampers," mainly retirement-age couples who work seasonal jobs at RV parks and camping parks for minimum or relatively low wages during the summer months. (Photo Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

We were going over her budget and it didn’t look good.

She was retired and in her late 60s. Her only income is Social Security. Between the cost of health care, medicine, food and rent there wasn’t really anything left over to handle the thousands of dollars of credit card debt. Credit was the bridge she used to extend her benefit check.

“You need to file for bankruptcy,” I said.

She didn’t say anything for quite some time.

“But I pay my debts, always have,” she finally responded. “Scripture says, the wicked vow and don’t pay.”

For all of her working life, she had sufficient income to cover her expenses. But now there just wasn’t enough. Even if she just paid the minimum due, she would be in her 90s before it was all paid off. The stress of debt was too much to bear. By the time she got over her embarrassment to ask for help, bankruptcy was the only viable option.

Filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy was devastating to her. Yet, it was what saved her from the increasingly aggressive letters and calls from creditors. Things are still very tight, but she’s making her meager ends meet.

Last week, a lot of news outlets jumped on this detail: Data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project show that bankruptcy filings by people 65 and older are climbing.

“The social safety net for older Americans has been shrinking for the past couple decades,” according to the paper “Graying of U.S. Bankruptcy: Fallout from Life in a Risk Society.” “The risks associated with aging, reduced income and increased health care costs, have been offloaded onto older individuals. At the same time, older Americans are increasingly likely to file consumer bankruptcy, and their representation among those in bankruptcy has never been higher.”

There has been more than a twofold increase in the rate at which older Americans file for bankruptcy protection and almost fivefold jump in the percentage of older persons in the bankruptcy system, according to the research compiled by a group that includes Deborah Thorne at the University of Idaho, Pamela Foohey of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Robert Lawless of the University of Illinois College of Law and Katherine Porter of University of California Irvine School of Law.

“The magnitude of growth in older Americans in bankruptcy is so large that the broader trend of an aging U.S. population can explain only a small portion of the effect,” the researchers wrote. “In our data, older Americans report they are struggling with increased financial risks, namely inadequate income and unmanageable costs of health care, as they try to deal with reductions to their social safety net.”

They report that the median senior bankruptcy filer has a negative net worth of $17,390.

Here’s a chilling proclamation from the report: “For an increasing number of older Americans, their golden years are fraught with economic risks . . . Absent significant policy changes that reassume the risks of aging and effectively insure the financial stability of older Americans, our data suggest that the trend of an aging bankruptcy population will continue. For older Americans, bankruptcy is too little too late. By the time they file, their wealth has vanished, and they simply do not have enough years to get back on their feet.”

Last week, I was on NPR’s 1A to talk about this trend. I was joined on the show, hosted by Joshua Johnson, by Thorne, the principal investigator of the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, and by Cindy Hounsell, president of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER).

“Oh, c'mon: who could have possibly imagined that the systematic theft of Baby Boomers' pensions to artificially inflate stock prices and temporarily increase corporate profits would ever have any adverse effects on actual people?” one listener wrote.  (Continue)

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Retired and broke: Bankruptcy filings surging for seniors

Marti Oakley: Minnesota Boomers Express Fear of Doctors

“Attendee’s reported that when they were hospitalized, they were given sedatives (chemical restraint) against their will. Add to this that many talked about the callous treatment they received by hospital staff, including at times (but not often), physical abuse. Virtually all in attendance were concerned that if they were hospitalized, they would never return home.”

At a recent local meeting here in Minnesota with approximately 60 elderly individuals, 60 and over, several things caught my attention that I found alarming. The recent revelations about the lack of oversight, concern, and ongoing abuse, neglect and exploitation of seniors in nursing homes was paramount, many fearing or believing that at some point they would end up in one of these houses of horror.   Reports of a senior in an assisted living facility, who had died two days prior without anyone noticing, must have terrorized these people even more.

Full Article and Source:
Marti Oakley: Minnesota Boomers Express Fear of Doctors

The road ahead: Corrupt guardianship system needs reform

My family was one of the many families victimized by a predatory guardian/executor business working under shield of secrecy in New Mexico – i.e. the legal mandate to “seal” all fiduciary and medical records of protected persons. I testified before one of the first hearings of the Commission ordered by (N.M. Supreme Court) Justice Charles Daniels.

So far, the absolute and vault-like sealing of any records pertaining to the elderly, infirm and disabled has militated against their well-being. The “sealing” provision of the law protects only malfeasant guardians and conservators, not those who are the legal “protected persons.” Those persons are actually hostages to a corrupt system, a corrupt system which we have the opportunity to reform.

The sole financial accounting my mother’s predatory guardian/executor performed was an annual, two-page, woefully general letter to the judge, who was not an accountant and lacked the skill or time to really analyze it.

The reforms recommended by the commission will cost an initial outlay of $1 million. But Ayudando allegedly embezzled and Desert State Life Management did embezzle at least $4 million from their clients. These victims were veterans, the disabled, SSI recipients: the poorest of the poor. Their funds will never be restored. How much will it cost the state to support them in their destitution?

U.S.News & World Report (in its) Nov. 21 issue reported that chief economist Jon Clark of the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee said the state’s recently depleted savings had substantially grown, and that the state had set aside an estimated $500 million as of the start of the fiscal year on July 1. The article further said that although New Mexico’s state finances had been hit hard by a 2015 downturn in the oil sector, we are enjoying a rapid turnaround.

The guardianship/executorship reform would cost only 1/500th of New Mexico’s set-aside funding. But it would impact a great segment of the population. A flood of Baby Boomers are getting older and will be at the mercy of predatory guardians and conservators very soon.

There are many demands for money at this time.

However, these victims, or hostages, have uttered “silent screams.” They are people who lack any real representation, (for example a) Holocaust survivor was not allowed to bring a journalist to a hearing before his guardian.

The $600,000 initial cost for a computer software program is a one-time investment; the commission’s recommendations balance the protected person’s vital secrecy while protecting him or her from rapacious exploitation; (and) one or two live watchdogs’ salaries is a small price to pay to protect the very most vulnerable in New Mexico.

Gov. (Susana) Martinez is uniquely positioned to aid the New Mexicans vulnerable to predatory guardians and conservators for three reasons:

1. Only she, as governor, can put this issue on the agenda for this session.

2. (She) is a lawyer (and) knows how lawyers can subvert the spirit of the law. Now the well-being of protected persons is sabotaged, not fortified, by the law. This is done with the tool of the statutory “sealing” of any records. Sunlight is a great disinfectant. With no transparency at all, there can be no accountability at all.

3. (She) is a caregiver of her sister. She knows how much caregivers love their relatives. They do not want any of the provisions stored up for their relative’s well-being to be misappropriated. Perhaps of even more importance, they do not want their relative being mistreated should the caregiver pre-decease the compromised relative. Both exploitation and abuse are rampant under the status quo.

To many readers, this is a lackluster issue. But its very low profile is by the design of rapacious predators who function most effectively in the dark alleys of non-accountability.

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The road ahead: Corrupt guardianship system needs reform

Advice for the ‘handshake’ generation: Stay connected, stay safe from scammers

George Edward

More often than not, senior citizens will be scammed and defrauded by their loved ones, not strangers, according to the author of “How to Steal from Mom; A Wake-up Call for Seniors.”

“They will be preyed upon by those near and dear them,” said George Edward of Bellingham. Before retiring, Edward was the risk management officer for Whatcom Educational Credit Union. During his tenure he developed the WECU SAFE Program, tailored to combat the financial exploitation of senior citizens.

While leading the program from 2007-15, he investigated 120 cases of financial fraud and abuse cases. Seventy-five percent of the scammers were a son or daughter. The average age of their victims was 82.

In most cases, the victim was alone, physically disabled, confused or suffering from Alzheimer’s, Edward said.

The crime is often referred to as familial fraud. Familial fraud occurs when fraud is committed by one family member against another. Caregiver fraud may be committed by a family member but it could also be anyone trusted to help with legal, financial or personal business. In either case, the fraud is the same, said Laura Lee, senior vice president and security officer of Peoples Bank in Bellingham.

The people who commit such crimes target older people because they are most likely to have substantial savings and excellent credit. They also tend to be polite and trusting, a result of being part of what Edward calls the “handshake generation.”

As more and more Baby Boomers retire on fixed incomes and more seniors become totally dependent on others, the number of elderly victims of financial abuse will increase, Edward said.

“In my experience, the typical victim does not read or understand his or her monthly (bank) statement and implicitly trusts the son or daughter with the fiduciary responsibility of managing his or her finances,” Edward said.

While he has seen a growing number of familial fraud cases, Edward says there are likely more that go unreported.

Seniors also are less likely to report a fraud, because they might be ashamed at having been scammed or don’t realize they have been victimized. They also might be concerned that relatives will think they no longer have the capacity to care for themselves.

Bellingham Police Lt. Danette Beckley said she is aware of at least a couple of cases of familial fraud in Bellingham involving elderly parents. In one instance, a son was given the power of attorney and bilked his elderly mother out of thousands of dollars.   (Click to Continue)

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Advice for the ‘handshake’ generation: Stay connected, stay safe from scammers

Part One: THE THREE DEATHS OF DOROTHY E. MILICH

by Debbie (Milich) Mysiewicz

“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law and with the colors of justice.”
U.S. v. Janotti, 673 F. 2d, 578, 614 (3rd Circuit, 1982)

—
Preface: Much of the material in Part One and the following extended Part Two, including the names of participants, is drawn from the public portions of Clallam Co. Superior Court case no. 11-4-00249-7, filed September 9th, 2011, Guardianship of Dorothy Milich (aka Milich-Wilson, Wilson.) All docket entries cited are for that case unless otherwise stated.

PART ONE
Anyone who has ever read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago will undoubtedly see many similarities to Washington court guardianships and so-called “agreed” guardianships when it comes to (alleged or real) incapacitated seniors and their families. Prisoners were given little sheets of toilet paper and pencils to write their grievances on, which never amounted to anything and probably were not read. Years after sentencing prisoners got the court rules showing them all the “rights” they had, but which were not asserted because they did not know about them at the time they were convicted. It was too late when they learned about them…

I myself am a low-income senior. My tragic story along these lines involves a senile and demented Washington adult—my mother—who, despite 18 months of my complaints and predictions of this, was crippled while unattended in a hostile (to me and her own well-being) accepted/“agreed” guardianship. She died less than two years after being crippled.

Being a non lawyer and unable to afford legal help, I, her only child and living blood relative, was deliberately and quickly excluded from protecting her through the auspices of the WA Courts and an orchestrated gaggle of judges, lawyers, guardians, social workers, psychologists and avaricious individuals. Then, her entire estate, and family heirlooms of any monetary value, originally intended by my grandmother for me, was given to non-family members claiming to be her friends.

I should note here that the guardian claims my mother would not have been crippled had she pursued physical therapy after her injury . I beg to differ from this callous assessment—octogenarians do not have a high rate of success with physical therapy. In my mother’s case, she was in extreme pain and, in all likelihood, would not have had her ability to walk unassisted restored by physical therapy.

A curious side effect: a woman with virtually no memory beyond a week , who may not have known her own birthday or how may children she had (one), and who was unaware of the extent of her assets , was allowed (in secret—I was not informed by the court nor was I served in the District Court name change action) to change her name (and possibly file a marriage certificate 6 years after her live-in partner’s death .) She then was allowed to write a new will disinheriting her entire family months before her near-fatal, crippling injury. (Prior to this unrelated injury, the Clallam Co. Superior Court had even given the guardian immunity for allowing my mother, who could not safely drive, to drive a dangerous lawn tractor.)

In one of my mother’s last lucid moments, two weeks before imposition of the guardianship, she warned me “Don’t come up here, Debbie. They’ll eat you alive.” It was more than a year until I got to speak with her again.

Tragic stories like mine are the norm, and not just in Washington. In fact, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) will soon publish its 2016 update of the massive 2010 report on nationwide guardian abuse. My story is different. Beyond showing the guardianship was faulty by the real-world outcome, I can show how it got created and why, as a poor person, I was quickly disposed of and, hence, was unable to stop what I maintain was essentially the drugging and slow kill of my mother. This despite seemingly well-designed WA legislation designed to prevent such abuses.

My experience shows how, once the hostile “agreed guardianship” was created, the court essentially wrote its own rules and was protected from any oversight as all the investigative bodies (such as DSHS APS and the CPG Board) are under the direct authority of the Washington Supreme Court, and so there is no real oversight unless requested by officers of the court (i.e., judges and lawyers.) If you or I provided more or less 13-hours/week of care to a seriously impaired senior, who had previously fallen on several occasions, and who refused to wear her Lifealert bracelet—and this elder was crippled, it’s likely we’d be under criminal investigation.

As baby boomers age, the allegations of elder abuse and exploitation and “estate harvesting” in cases like my mother’s are certain to soar unless prompt action is taken by Washington’s voters and the Legislature to curb the almost unlimited power of the courts over vulnerable seniors and their families facing guardianship or in guardianships. Every citizen is at a risk from a system that allows a form of “patty cake” to be played by the various members of the “system” none of whom seems to have accountability.

I like to find something positive in experiences like this. I think I’ve experienced enough to recommend substantive modifications to Washington law that will protect vulnerable adults from guardianship injury and exploitation while, a the same time, giving low-income next-of-kin the information needed to make informed decisions before a guardianship is established or set in stone.

And the ability to stop or alter a guardianship they feel poses a threat to their loved one. (For instance, in the “agreed/approved” order in my case, it appeared the court was prioritizing the financial interests of my mother’s “care team” vs. the health and safety needs of my mother.) I must stress that while guardian horror stories abound, it is the system that must change first because the guardians do what they do at the behest of it. If we can’t immediately throw out the current guardianship system—and it is going to become an overwhelming problem as so-called “boomers” age and there are insufficient qualified guardians—I’ve come up with suggestions for the Legislature and Governor for a temporary fix:

• Next of kin given priority as guardian or in selecting a guardian unless specific findings are made by the court of abuse or misconduct with regard to the alleged ICP. Such guardians, with limited financial resources, shall be allowed to collect a reasonable salary and expenses from the estate equivalent to what the courts now call “professional nonprofessional guardians.” Under these standards I would be considered one if I had three clients but, if I had filed to be guardian for my mother full time, I would not have been compensated because I was her daughter!;

• Failure to make legal service on next-of-kin or failure to provide any of the reports specified by RCW 11.88.090(5)(f)(ix) shall be grounds for immediate termination of a guardianship upon petition by next-of-kin or relatives. No fees shall accrue for such a petition to overturn the guardianship made in good faith. I was not legally served in this case nor was I provided aforementioned reports. I contend this damaged my “standing” and simplifed the imposition of an “agreed guardianship” excluding me, my mother’s only living blood relative;

• The Judge shall in every case make actual contact with the ICP—if possible in a courtroom setting. In this case, none of the judges even met my mother or spoke with her for that matter. My mother had a memory of “a week and a day” and may not have remembered her correct birthday (the party for her disclosed by guardian was at the wrong time of month and an erroneous death certificate was issued for her showing her birthday as Oct. 10th rather than Oct. 1st) or how many children she had, yet judges allowed her to change her name and write a will disinheriting me and the grandkids. I live in a 1963 mobile home with a disabled husband. The estate taken may have been in the millions (some of it possibly obtained at my expense through fraud in my late father’s estate) but I’ll never know because the real financial records were kept sealed;

• Guardian ad litems (GALs) are supposed to write a report assessing the ICP’s (incapacitated person’s) situation for the court. This is the basis for any court or approved “agreed guardianship.” These reports are often flimsy and frequently not even written so a copy can’t be given to the next of kin. I maintain we need to change the situation so, at all times, GALs should be required to always make written and not verbal reports specified in RCW 11.88.090(5)(f)(ix) that shall always be provided by law. In my case, the GAL only provided a report to me after a protest to the State Bar—4 months after the court approval of the guardianship—when it was too late to do any good. The report had many serious errors that ensured approval of the “agreed” order by the court that, I contend, contributed to crippling my mother. The GAL even failed to determine that the Certified Professional Guardian (CPG) they were appointing was only a trainee enjoined by the WA Courts from representing herself as a CPG—her appointment was allowed to stand and she was permitted to use letters of guardianship in commerce stating she was a CPG! (Financial institutions scrutinize CPG transactions less closely than lay guardians’ transactions.) The GAL also underestimated the size of my mother’s estate by $600,000—allowing the option of only “modest,” but inadequate care;

• Low-income next-of-kin contesting an agreed guardianship filed by other parties shall be provided an attorney at public expense. My case was a slaughter—threats of sanctions and every dirty legal trick was used while the judges looked the other way except once, when a judge told an attorney to “stop shouting at me.”;

• A low-income ombudsman for guardianships shall be created with the power to investigate GALs and guardians and make binding recommendations to the local courts and the AOC;

• The DSHS APS shall be mandated by the legislature to investigate all claims of elder neglect and abuse—including claims of neglect in court and approved guardianships—without bias and be given the power to make binding recommendations for change in care/guardian if a guardianship is involved. In my case, all my repeated warnings about the care of and risks to my mother were ignored—including assertions that my mother had been threatened if she spoke to me. My mother was put on a heavy drug regimen after this and was crippled a little over two (2) months after my final letter to DSHS about inadequate care and coercion;

• Guardians must be required to carry E&O (errors and omissions) insurance requisite to the size of the estate they are managing. In my mother’s case, the guardian carried $50,000 worth of insurance on a $900,000 stated estate!;

• Filing of unsubstantiated derogatory affidavits by ICPs suffering from dementia shall not be admissible in guardianship proceedings unless substantial evidential proof of their veracity is provided. Several alleged affidavits of my mother, either unsworn or notarized under a name that was not her legal name, were proffered to the court to not allow regular periods of contact with my mother. She had much-vaunted “free will” to avoid me, they claimed, yet when she wanted to not have lunch with her “care team” to whom she allegedly left all her assets, she was told she “had to see them” because they were her care team.;

• Attorneys representing the ICP or the guardianship must retain professional insurance. In my case, according to the WSBA website, both the court-appointed lawyer for my mother (who foolishly believed she had fired him in Dec. 2012—he remained court appointed) and the guardianship lawyer (suggested by the first lawyer) did NOT have professional insurance. Lawyers without insurance often utilize trusts and other devices to make themselves “judgment proof, which also effectively deters suits for misfeasance or malfeasance;” and,

• Next-of-kin to be automatically included as a party, with legal standing, to any agreed/approved or court guardianship except for exceptional proven wrongdoing. This would stop what happened to me in that I would have been given standing—which I should have had under common law—in what was essentially a court-approved private commercial agreement. (One ethical law firm in Port Angeles apparently refused to file the petition because I was specifically being left out.)

So how did my mother die three times? The first time was when she was placed into the guardianship—my human mother was gone and they even called the financial part of the process “a probate.” (Click to Continue)

Full Article & Source:
Part One: THE THREE DEATHS OF DOROTHY E. MILICH

Five myths about baby boomers

By Sally Abrahms

Sally Abrahms is a freelance writer on baby boomers and aging.

There are 75.4 million baby boomers in the United States, people from 51 to 69 years old. They are the largest generation in American history, raised during the economic prosperity that followed World War II. Media and marketers have treated the generation as one enormous, monolithic group since their youth. But larger than the entire population of France, America’s baby boomers are a far more diverse demographic than any of their many stereotypes convey. The oldest boomer, born in 1946, was 18 years old when the youngest was just entering the world. It’s time to debunk some generalizations about the original Me Generation.

1. Boomers are wealthy.

Rather than downsizing, many empty nesters are snapping up second homes or moving into bigger quarters, seeking more prestige and space for friends and relatives to visit. For instance, the Lake Weir Preserve retirement community in central Florida offers custom homes with garages as huge as 3,000 square feet, to fit RVs, boats and classic-car collections. Increasingly, “retirement isn’t all about being practical,” Ken Dychtwald, founder and chief executive of the consulting firm Age Wave, told U.S. News & World Report this year.

Such stories of big spending have dominated popular perceptions of boomers in their later years.

But many boomers couldn’t be further from living that dream. While some benefit from multiple income streams, members of this sandwich generation often are saddled simultaneously with their children’s eye-popping college tuition payments and health expenses for their aging parents. Some have to leave their jobs to be full-time caregivers. A 2013 AARP study found that about 1 in 5 workers between ages 45 and 74 had either taken leave or quit a job to care for an adult family member in the past five years. That amounted to an average $303,880 in lost income (including pension and Social Security benefits) per caregiver, according to a MetLife estimate.

On top of that, there’s a mounting number of “gray divorce” couples who, in their 50s and 60s, suddenly have to divide assets they had counted on. Given boomers’ longer life expectancy, that translates into a lot more bills for many more years.

Savings aren’t helping them much. A Wells Fargo study released last month shows that working Americans age 60 or older have median savings of just $50,000, about $250,000 short of their goal. And plans to keep their jobs longer might not work. In the same study, 49 percent of retired respondents said they left the workforce earlier than expected, frequently because of health problems or an employer’s decision.

Boomers know that their financial situation is more precarious than others think. “When I talk to audiences around the country, I hear this palpable fear that boomers will outlive their money,” says personal finance expert Kerry Hannon, author of “Getting the Job You Want After 50.”

2. Boomers are healthier than their parents.

Baby boomers have the longest life expectancy in history. The average 65-year-old today can expect to live to 84.3 — nearly three years longer than a 65-year-old in 1980. New tests to screen for health issues, along with greater public awareness about the dangers of smoking, sitting and obesity, give boomers health advantages that their parents never had. Statins to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease weren’t even introduced until 1987. Boomers are tracking their fitness, tallying their steps and counting their calories. It’s natural to assume they are healthier than the previous generation.

But the data doesn’t agree. “We have all these medical advances, fitness and technology. There’s this belief that with so many more tools available that boomers have to be doing better, but it’s a misperception,” says Cedric Bryant, chief science officer for the American Council on Exercise.

Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2013 showed that boomers were in worse health than their parents at about the same age. They had more disabilities and higher rates of chronic diseases. Just 13 percent of the studied boomers said they were in excellent health, compared with 32 percent of people from the previous generation. Boomers were more likely to be obese, exercised less, and had higher rates of hypertension and high cholesterol.

3. Boomers are selfish.

If you want to see how unpopular the cohort unfortunately nicknamed the Me Generation has become, just Google “baby boomers selfish.” My search returned 147,000 results, including headlines declaring them “The Worst Generation Ever.” Detractors complain that boomers stay too long at their jobs and in their homes, not making room for the next generation, spending their children’s inheritances and running up debt.

Elsewhere in this issue, Jim Tankersley writes, “the generation that was born into some of the strongest job growth in the history of America, gobbled up the best parts, and left its children and grandchildren with some bones to pick through and a big bill to pay.”

Not so fast. Boomers have been far more generous with their money than they’re given credit for, a benevolence that will continue after their deaths. The generation is poised to lead the largest wealth transfer in U.S. history. Researchers at Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy estimated that between 2007 and 2061, heirs will receive $36 trillion from deceased relatives, and $20.6 trillion will be given to charity. A new Merrill Lynch report credits boomers for an upcoming surge in charitable giving: Over the next 20 years, retirees will donate money and time worth $8 trillion. (Continue Reading)

Full Article & Source:
Five myths about baby boomers

What’s ahead for wealth management in the United States?

Wealth management in the United States is a huge business today. And it is about to get a lot bigger. The Deloitte Center for Financial Services expects US household assets to increase from $87 trillion today to over $140 trillion by 2030, of which nearly $64 trillion will be in investable financial assets. This means that in 2030, between $150 billion and $240 billion in wealth management fees could be up for grabs.¹

But for financial firms to fully exploit these potential opportunities, they will need a refined understanding of how this wealth will be distributed among different age cohorts. Generational segmentation is not a marketing gimmick—there is vast evidence to show that the financial, behavioral, and life-stage tendencies of different generations are meaningful and unique.



Baby Boomers, a frequent punching bag among social critics for their excesses,² will not head into the sunset quietly (see “The generations defined” by the Pew Research Center). In 2029, the year when the last Boomer will have turned 65, the US Census Bureau projects that there will still be over 61 million Boomers—about 17.2 percent of the projected US population.³ They will continue to wield immense influence over every aspect of American society for at least another two decades. As their needs and circumstances evolve, Boomers may yet again challenge conventional wisdom and redefine their role in the American economy. Financial firms would do well to take notice.

Meanwhile, Gen Xers, America’s neglected middle children, squeezed between two much larger generations,⁴ are entering the most financially rewarding stages of their lives; they will become the next big fee pool for financial services firms.

And Millennials, already seen as a segment with quirky tendencies and limitless potential, will affirm their status as the new drivers of consumption going forward. Their financial commitments (for example, education, homes, and cars) will fuel growth in the banking sector. Once they graduate to higher incomes, their share of assets will also pick up, although their lower per-capita wealth will demand differentiated service levels. However, their most pronounced impact on financial services may be driven by their value-conscious behavior and how they buy products and services, which may force a revamp of long-entrenched operating models.  (Continue Reading)

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What’s ahead for wealth management in the United States?

Ageism: A Call to Awareness*

An Introduction from Ashton Applewhite on Vimeo.

The performer steps on stage. From the front row I am captivated. Her charisma is infectious; I am hanging on every word. I feel like I am at a TED Talk -- I am not. I am at BOOM! The first conference of Boomers Leading Change in Health in Denver, Colorado. This conference is geared towards baby boomers who see the upside of aging and delivers the call to action of, "It's time to change the world again!" I am listening to Ashton Applewhite, anti-ageism author and activist. (Watch a clip of her above and learn more here!) I am listening to her talk about growing old and I am inspired.

How refreshing it was, to be surrounded by people being curious about aging and allowing for the possibility of an upside.

We are all, each and every day of our lives aging. While it may be a profitable industry, to be "anti-aging" is a physical impossibility while alive. Listening to Ashton constellated something in me.

Age is a criterion for diversity just like gender, sexual orientation or race. As with these other factors, there is rampant discrimination based on age. Much of this discrimination is internalized. In her talk Ashton Applewhite wondered why when older people lose keys we call it a senior moment, but when it happened in high school we didn't call it a junior moment. The answer? Ageism. 

This internalized ageism is reinforced by our culture at large as well. Age is a diversity factor which will render all humans in the minority culture, many of us twice at the two ends of our lives. We all have ideas of what we are expected to do at a given age and what we expect from others at their ages.

These generalizations can add order and efficiency to our lives but they also lead to pigeonholing and discrimination when we do not follow the set patterns or when our appearance does not match our calendar age. The best way to decrease stigma and discrimination in through awareness. 

Ageism is insidious because it is largely unconscious, it is time for that to change!

I give you the asterisk.

The asterisk denotes that there is more to something. In writing it is used to send the reader to a footnote for further explanation. Let's add an asterisk to age. Our years on this planet are important, age is not something to be hidden or lied about, but it is something to add an asterisk to: there is more to the story than the assumptions that come with a number.

Put the asterisk by your name in an email signature, next to your age anytime you are asked to give it, on business cards, in store windows on bumper stickers and when possible have a paragraph explaining it so others can follow suit (see an example below). Let the asterisk become a symbol that age is a number of years spent on the planet AND that there is more to be said, our number of years does not define our life, our value, who we are or how we deserve to be treated.

The asterisk says to be curious about this human who has an age but isn't their age.

*This asterisk symbolizes my belief and commitment that humans are more than their age and that stereotypes and discriminations based on age need to be challenged within our own psyches and the world!

Full Article & Source:
Ageism: A Call to Awareness*

From the Front Page of the Wall Street Journal: Abuse Plagues System of Legal Guardians for Adults

One day in March 2012, 71-year-old Linda McDowell received a knock at the door of her small Vancouver, Wash., home. Ms. McDowell needed court-appointed help, the visitor told her.

It turned out that Ms. McDowell’s former housemate and companion had pushed for a court petition claiming Ms. McDowell was unable to take care of herself. The petition said Ms. McDowell had recently made an unsafe driving maneuver, had been disruptive in a doctor’s office and, in a recent phone call, had seemed confused over the whereabouts of some personal papers.

Based on the motion, a judge ordered an attorney to act as a temporary guardian with control over Ms. McDowell’s money and medical care. Ms. McDowell was also to pay for these services.

“I was shocked,” says Ms. McDowell, who once worked as a conference manager for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration before a second career in real-estate investing. “I had never met this person, and here she was telling me I basically belonged to her.”

The visit marked the start of a 30-month stretch in Washington’s guardianship system that upended her life and drained much of her $700,000 in assets. People involved in her case still disagree about whether Ms. McDowell ever needed a guardian. But by the time a judge decided that one wasn’t necessary, the value of her assets had dropped by about $470,000, much of which was spent on several guardians and related expenses, court and bank records show.

“My savings are gone,” says Ms. McDowell, now living in a motor home near Sequim, Wash., with her dog, Sam. “They took everything.”

For decades, states have granted courts the power to appoint guardians or conservators for elderly or disabled people unable to tend to their basic needs. Most appointed guardians are family members, but judges can turn to a growing industry of professional, unrelated guardians.

The caretakers’ authority varies by case and jurisdiction, but often they are granted broad authority over a ward’s finances, medical care and living conditions. Unlike a power of attorney, which one person can grant to another and revoke at any time, guardianship is established by a judge and can only be revoked by the court.

Because guardianship systems vary by state and county and record-keeping systems are inconsistent, precise national data is unavailable. But the roughly 1.5 million adult guardianships in the U.S. involve an estimated $273 billion in assets, according to Anthony Palmieri, auditor for the guardianship fraud program in Palm Beach County, Fla.

According to a survey on guardianship conducted last year by the Administrative Conference of the United States, a federal agency, 64% of the 855 judges and staff who responded said their courts had taken action against at least one guardian for misconduct-related issues in the previous three years.

Guardians across the country have faced prosecution for wrongdoing in the past year. In July, Stephen Grisham, a guardian in Minneapolis, was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay restitution of nearly $160,000 after pleading guilty to stealing from his wards. He is “a very good person who made a horrible mistake,” says his attorney, Thomas Plunkett.

The problems are more urgent as aging baby boomers cause the population of seniors nearly to double by 2050, according to Census estimates. In New Jersey, the number of adult guardianships added annually increased 21% from 2009 to 2014, to 2,689 cases.

Guardians properly supervised by courts typically do a good job protecting elderly people from exploitation by acquaintances and others, says Catherine Seal, a guardianship attorney in Colorado Springs, Colo., and president-elect of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. “The worst cases that I see are the ones where there is no guardian,” she says.

In one case Ms. Seal handled several years ago, she says an elderly woman was befriended by a neighbor who persuaded her to buy a condo and include the neighbor’s name on the title. A year later, the neighbor had the woman transfer full ownership to her and moved in to the unit. After Ms. Seal was appointed conservator, she sold the condo and recovered the investment for the elderly woman.

Expenses that arise as a result of a guardianship, including lawyers for both the guardians and wards, typically get paid from the ward’s assets. (In some jurisdictions, there is a public guardian’s office that handles cases for indigent clients.) The financial arrangement, critics say, encourages lawyers and guardians to perpetuate guardianships indefinitely.

Full Article and Source:
Abuse Plagues System of Legal Guardians for Adults

Need Help Caring for a Loved One? Here Are Tips for Finding a Professional Caregiver

Baby Boomers wear many hats: they're parents, workers, activists, enthusiasts, community organizers, and so forth. These are roles that Boomers have chosen. But there's a new role that they may not have banked on: that of a caregiver to an aging parent.

According to Institute on Aging, about 43.5 million adult family caregivers care for someone 50 years of age and over. Among them, 14.9 million care for someone with dementia or Alzheimer's disease.
 
If you're a caregiver to an aging parent, you've probably found it to be a rewarding yet demanding experience. Oftentimes shifting some, or all, caregiver responsibilities over to a professional caregiver could be the right decision for both you and your loved one.

To learn more about finding and hiring professional caregivers, I interviewed Cliff Oilar, Jr., the co-owner and director of Back Home Senior Care, an Alameda, California-based non-franchised, family-owned in-home caregiving company.

 
Martha Laham (ML): Cliff, your company offers non-medical assistance to seniors. What is non-medical home care?

Cliff Oilar (CO): Non-medical services include personal care, which can include bathing, dressing, and bathroom visits; medication reminders; companionship; meal preparation; transportation to doctor's appointments, church, etcetera; and much more.

ML: What common full- and part-time caregiver services do you provide?

CO: We provide services on an hourly basis, with a minimum of three hours per visit. In addition, we offer overnight and 24-hour live-in care services when needed. The average service hours for our clients is between 15 to 20 hours per week.

ML: How much does it cost to hire a professional caregiver?

CO: The hourly rate for a caregiver in the San Francisco Bay Area is between $22-$28 per hour. Live-in rates range from $360-$400 per day, and constant care for a patient ranges from $560-$600 per day. These rates are determined by a patient's needs and level of care, and the specific region in which a senior lives.

ML: Are these services ever furnished in other settings like a nursing home?

CO: Yes, it is not uncommon to provide supplemental and respite care for a senior living in an assisted living, skilled nursing, or independent living facility. In some cases, the facility may be understaffed, or the family members want personalized care for a loved one.  (Continue Reading)

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Need Help Caring for a Loved One? Here Are Tips for Finding a Professional Caregiver

The Milestone Moments In Every Boomer's Life

If you were asked to select a song that defined your youth, what song would you pick? If you said Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" (1958) or The Beatles' "Hey Jude" (1968), you'd probably be a member of Boomers I or the Leading-Edge Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1955). Now if you picked Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" (1975) or Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" (1975), you'd probably be included in Boomers II or Trailing-Edge Baby Boomers (born 1956-1964).

Yes, the baby boomer generation is large enough to command two cohort groups. As a whole, baby boomers came of age during the early 1950s through the late 1970s. Let's take a glance at boomers' lives through a kaleidoscope of defining social moments.

The Golden Age (The 1950s)

In America, the 1950s was a period of unflagging optimism and economic robustness, following the dark days of the Great Depression and World War II. During this time, older boomers were youngsters and tweeners, most of whom were raised with traditional family values "as American as apple pie" and lived in family suburban homes with the proverbial white picket fence.

As kids, these boomers frequently congregated at a local soda fountain often housed in a drugstore like Walgreens. Going to the drive-in theater was a popular family pastime. The admission price was about one dollar per car, and popcorn sold for only 25 cents. Boomer kids were also transfixed by popular television programs of the day, such as Adventures of Superman, Lassie, and The Lone Ranger, which they watched on black-and-white TVs.

The Decade of Discontent (The 1960s)

You probably remember the 1967 movie The Graduate that captured boomers' zeitgeist of the time. In it, Dustin Hoffman played Ben, a rudderless college graduate. At Ben's graduation party, Mr. McGuire, a buttoned-down, middle-aged family friend, advises Ben on his future. Mr. McGuire said, "I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics." "Plastics" was a trigger word for Ben and boomers like him: it spoke to the phoniness in American society.

Many older boomers felt the same way as Ben. "Selling out" to the military-industrial complex, a broad term to include corporations and institutions that supported America's war machine, was not a future they could comfortably envision. Still, many dyed-in-the-wool hippies traded in their tunics for oxford cloth shirts and, ultimately, took jobs in Corporate America.  (Continue Reading)

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The Milestone Moments In Every Boomer's Life

The Power Of The Past: Boomers Catch Nostalgia Fever

Martha T.S. Laham

Do you remember watching the original airing of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It to Beaver, or I Love Lucy? If you're nodding your head, smiling, and wistfully thinking back on the playful charm of these television shows from the 1950s and 1960s, you're probably like many boomers who wax nostalgic about an earlier time, when life was simpler, more streamlined, and less dependent on the Internet for everything.

Many boomers have been bitten by the nostalgia bug. In response, many marketers are using nostalgia to sell everything from whiskey to perfume and cars to sneakers. Let's take a closer look at the concept of nostalgia, and learn how the power of the past can spell good business in the present.

The word "nostalgia" has Greek roots. 
 Nostalgia is believed to have been derived from Homer's The Odyssey (about 675-725 BCE). The word was created by combining the Greek words for "homecoming" and "pain, ache."

In its modern usage, nostalgia is defined as "pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again." Today, the word has gained tremendous popularity. In fact, nostalgia landed on Merriam-Webster's 2014 Words of the Year list.

Nostalgia is a domain of the brain.
In the realm of psychoanalysis, nostalgia is a longing to return to an idealized past, specifically a scrubbed narrative of the past. This is known as a screen memory, a mash-up of entangled memories minus negative emotions.

When you hear, smell, or taste something that takes you back to the past, you're experiencing screen memories, according to an article entitled "The Nature of Nostalgia." Of the five senses, smell is closely linked to a part of the brain that processes emotions, called the olfactory bulb, which is a component of the limbic system, the brain's emotional hub. So, when you catch a whiff of a gardenia, you may think back to your prom night when your prom date presented you with a gardenia corsage--the sweet scent of nasal nostalgia.

Hard times can foster nostalgia.
During tough economic times, people tend to view the past through rose-colored glasses, according to a Euromonitor International industry report. A shaky economy or an uncertain political environment can stoke the fire of nostalgia, as people are apt to hold on to something familiar and makes them feel good.

Retro brands are staging a comeback.
Consumers often seek products and services that help them reanimate the warm and fuzzy feelings that they felt during happier days. These retro brands are repurposed versions of brands from a prior era.

To market retro brands, companies frequently use nostalgia with the intent of triggering an emotional response from the consumer. This practice is known as retro marketing, also known as flashback branding. According to an article entitled "Nostalgia Products: Making a Tasty Comeback," advertisers add a "mix of retro-cool to their advertising campaigns."

Take Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft blasted consumers back to the past in a video titled "Child of the '90s." The video featured fad products like the yoyo, troll doll, fanny pack, pumpable sneaker, and Hungry Hungry Hippos. When the video went viral, both Microsoft and Microsoft Windows enjoyed a boost in their brand power, according to Adweek.

Boomer brands sing a nostalgic tune.
In an earlier blog post entitled "Here Comes the Boom: 15 Things You Should Know About the Next Wave of Seniors," boomer brands were presented, including Harley-Davidson, Volkswagen, Noxzema, the Beatles, Pepsi, Absolut Vodka, Saturday Night Live, Facebook, Coach, Levi's, Club Med, L'eggs, Frye Boots, and Clairol.

Consider the Beatles. To grab baby boomer eyeballs and ears, Beatles' songs have cropped up in a variety of advertising campaigns. For example, in 1987, Nike launched Nike Air Max with a commercial featuring tennis sensation John McEnroe, basketball great Michael Jordan, and The Fab Four's song "Revolution."

The fashion industry recycles retro.
Fashion trends are historically cyclical. According to an article in Vogue, fashion designers, including Tom Ford, Prada, Pucci, and Gucci, have revived retro-style garments from the 1970s for their spring/summer 2015 collections. So, if you stored away your crop tops, fringed suede jackets, paisley shirts, go-go boots, and bell-bottoms, it's time to bring them out of mothballs.

But an outfit isn't complete without accessories, including jewelry. Jewelry designer Deborah Porterfield of A Touch of Class Jewelers explains that jewelry trends evolve too. "During the '70s, we saw layered chains, leather wristbands, bulky jewelry, long earrings, and the peace sign used in everything from earrings to bracelets to rings. It's a trend in jewelry we're seeing again today." Porterfield compared ever-changing fashion trends to "a revolving door."

Dead celebrities are brought back to life to pitch products.
Audrey Hepburn makes a virtual appearance in a Galaxy Chocolate commercial. Gene Kelly raps and break dances to a club mix of "Singin' in the Rain" in a VW Gold GTI spot. Bruce Lee makes his CGI debut in a Johnnie Walker Blue Label ad. Marilyn Monroe co-stars with Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, and a very alive Charlize Theron in a splashy fragrance commercial for J'Adore by Dior.

Whether you like or dislike the practice of bringing a celebrity back from the dead to pitch products, this creative strategy can strike a chord with baby boomers. According to a Time's article entitled "Digital Necromancy: Advertising with Reanimated Celebrities," the use of "delebs" in ads is driven by nostalgic baby boomers.

You'll probably be able to find updated versions of once-popular products from the good old days as long as nostalgia resonates with consumers. After all, the almost defunct Hostess Twinkie was partly saved by what else: public nostalgia.

Full Article & Source:
The Power Of The Past: Boomers Catch Nostalgia Fever

See Also:
The Con Game - Failure of Trust

Aging Boomers: A New Frontier?

Elder Law Attorney Ramsey Bahrawy and Alexis Abramson of alexisabramson.com discuss aging Boomers.

While aging is an inevitable part of life, will boomers will revolutionize, rather than fear, the aging process? By setting new expectations and maintaining the proper balance, will Boomers transform attitudes about aging and thereby convert aging into the next new frontier?

Source:
Aging Boomers:  A New Frontier?

Could a Caregiver Corps Solve the Caregiving Shortage?

A recent report from AARP found that we are on the verge of facing a major caregiver shortage in the not-so-distant future. According to their report, in 2010, there were "more than 7 potential caregivers for every person in the high-risk years of 80-plus" and by 2030, the projected ratio will fall to 4 people for every person 80-plus. And by 2050, "it is expected to further fall to less than 3 to 1."

Aging in place has become an important part of aging in America. Whether due to the struggling economy, comfort or deeper personal reasons, people simply do not want to spend their later years in nursing homes or assisted living facilities; they prefer to grow old in their own homes, usually with the help of their grown children. For the last decade or so, this has been made possible thanks to their children and amenities offered by both private companies and local governments to assist the elderly with aging in place.

Baby Boomers, however, may not be as lucky. Boomer women had fewer children than their parents and some opted out of having children at all. Combine that with higher divorce rates -- by 2030, 36 percent of older men will have been alone for a decade or longer -- and we've got a Caregiver shortage crisis on our hands.

Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat out of Pennsylvania, sits on the U.S. Senate Aging Committee and has spent many hours listening to the testimony of people who are struggling to care for aging parents. Based on what he's heard, he's working on developing a National Caregiver Corps. According to a press release on Senator Casey's website, he plans "to introduce legislation to establish a Caregiver Corps program to foster the creation of community-based programs that can help 'fill the gap' in assisting older adults and individuals with disabilities, and in providing added support for informal caregivers." The goal of the program is to ease the burden of low-income and middle class families who have been struggling with how to balance work and family responsibility.

Volunteers who participate in the program would receive specific guidelines and structure from the Department of Health and Human Services in order to provide assistance to families by "cleaning, preparing food or even shopping for people who want to remain at home" as they age, as well as respite care for existing family caregivers. The proposal also includes providing volunteers with a stipend, tuition credit or even academic credits.

Full Article and Source:
Could a Caregiver Corps Solve the Caregiving Shortage?

Financial Abuse by Profiteering Guardians Awaits Boomers and Heirs

In May 2008, Larry Mills filed in Texas to become legal guardian of his then 80-year-old mother, Willie Joe Mills, who’d had a stroke. But by July 2009, Judge William McCulloch in a Harris County probate court appointed a third-party guardian who was also an attorney.

“The guardian put Mama in memory care with dementia people, then he sold her house for $86,000, cashed out $1 million in CDs and put it all in a trust before she was declared incompetent,” said Sherry Johnson, who is one of three of Mills’s adult children. “She never had a trial or due process.”

The nightmare Willie Joe Mills and her heirs experienced is part of a growing trend. Some 37% of judges, court managers and clerks who responded to a Center for Elders and the Courts survey revealed that guardianship filings have increased over the last three years and 43% noted an increase in caseloads.

In most states, it is not uncommon for the elderly to lose their individual rights around residence, medical care, assets and property once they are placed under guardianship. The consequences can be detrimental for families -- financially and in terms of the older relative's health.

Lasting Effects of the Swindle
Willie Joe Mills’s trust was reportedly billed on a quarterly basis by the guardian to pay his monthly salary to manage the elderly woman's affairs, but Johnson claims her mother’s health began failing once she was placed under care at Silverado Senior Living in Kenwood, Texas.

“She had pneumonia and urinary tract infections and the facility medical staff failed to treat her because the guardian told them not to,” said Johnson. “The guardian used a Do Not Resuscitate document my mother signed to avoid treating minor health problems that could have been arrested.”

“We are seeing financial exploitation of the elderly by court appointed third-party guardians where there is little oversight,” said Debby Valdez, president of Guardianship Reform Advocates for the Disabled and Elderly (GRADE) in San Antonio, Texas.

Money Talks
“Baby Boomers are the last generation of great wealth, so it stands to reason that things are going to get a whole lot worse and quickly,” said Elaine Renoire, president of the National Association to Stop Guardianship Abuse in Indiana.

Help That Hurts
Typically, Adult Protective Services (APS) is the first point of contact responsible for investigating alleged abuse.

“When APS receives reports of elder abuse, case workers go into the home to investigate and ameliorate the situation with legal, medical, psychological and social services,” said Karen Roberto, director with the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech.

And therein lies another potential for abuse in states where anyone can reportedly initiate a guardianship by simply placing a telephone call to the probate court.“We receive two to three phone calls a week from families whose elderly parent or family member is being forced into guardianship under the guise of protection by an APS phone call or visit,” Valdez told MainStreet.

Full Article and Source:
Financial Abuse by Profiteering Guardians Awaits Boomers and Heirs

See Also:
NASGA:  Willie Jo Mills - Texas Victim

Boomers Beware of Guardianship Abuse

Young Tech Entrepreneurs Develop Products for Seniors

When 73-year-old Ralph Harris walks down the street in Hayes Valley, he sees scores of interesting young entrepreneurs. But the San Francisco resident, who once grew his own small firm into a successful business, said he feels invisible to them.

"We see all this entrepreneurial energy, but once you get to be old, you disappear," Harris said. "They knock you over running with their cell phones to their big white buses."

So he was surprised when some startup founders asked him to join a focus group - at the Sequoias, his Cathedral Hill retirement community.

The focus group is part of a growing movement by young tech professionals to build consumer products geared toward seniors - whether it's developing ways to protect credit cards from scams or on-demand car apps for older folks.

"With most entrepreneurship, the person creating the solution is the person who has the problem," said Katy Fike, who holds a doctorate in gerontology and is advising a group of 11 startups that are working on services for people 50 and older. "A unique challenge of this space is that there might be someone who's 85 or 90 and they know the problem but they're not in a place to necessarily start a company. Why are we still taking care of people the same way we did 30 years ago?"

Full Article and Source:
Young Tech Entrepreneurs Develop Products for Seniors

Silver Tsunami

As the baby boomer generation gets closer to retirement they become more concerned about their financial security and health care services.  Conscientious senior citizens have planned for their future by working with an attorney to draw up an estate plan and will. However, even the most diligent seniors have fallen prey to a disturbing crisis in the form of elder abuse. Alleged friends, family, and neighbors have been filing for guardianship of the elderly, in numbers so alarming, that it raised red flags to government officials in Florida. Guardianship abuse reports reach across a broad spectrum including theft, kidnapping, forgery, assault, and criminal financial exploitation. Conspiracy to have seniors involuntarily committed to nursing homes and hospitals in order to gain control of their assets is a frightening reality faced by the elderly.  Exploitation of the elderly has reached epidemic proportions in Florida; the country’s leading and most popular home for our senior citizens. This crisis forced state officials to take preemptive measures. Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller, Sharon Bock, Esq. spearheaded a new division in her office, designated to address this abuse. Four to five years ago, Bock noticed a 15% increase in guardianship filings.  That trend, an increase in nearly four hundred new cases per year, has continued.

 In Palm Beach County, it is estimated that the court governing guardianships maintains oversight of $500 million in assets. Oversight and monitoring of attorneys, caregivers, friends, and family members has proven to be daunting considering the staggering extent to which guardians and caregivers will go to misappropriate money. Stories of over-medicating, physical restraint, and psychological manipulation are not uncommon in the world of guardianship trustees.

Full Article and Source:
Silver Tsunami by Karen Desoto