Rocky financial times are ahead for many seniors in 2003. Soaring health care, prescription drug, and insurance premium costs are driving record numbers of seniors into debt and record numbers of you are filing for bankruptcy protection. The prolonged stock market slump and low interest rates are pinching returns on retirement savings accounts and forcing many seniors to turn to credit cards and loans to cover out-of-pocket health care costs.

Some of you report your prescription costs doubled, even quadrupled in the last 12 months or so. (See reader Nathan S.’s letter at http://www.tscl.org/NewContent/101595.asp.)

I’m sorry to report that I see no light at the end of the health cost tunnel. In fact, unprecedented health care cost increases are occurring at the same time the government is preparing to announce what I believe will be the lowest Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) ever! How can that be? We’ve devoted most of this newsletter to examining the causes and solutions to this problem—what we believe is a true crisis for seniors. Some of the worst affected are Notch Victims and older female retirees.

Sources: “American Seniors Rack Up Debt Like Never Before. Medical Expenses Often Feed the Cycle,” Christine Dugas, “USA TODAY,” April 26, 2002.

To read more on this topic, see “Health Care Costs Pushing Some Seniors Into Debt,” at http://www.tscl.org/NewContent/101550.asp.

October 2002