AARP Bulletin - October 2009

In the News ; $64 Boomers’ average daily spending, down from $98 in 2008.

Prescriptions Ready and Waiting, Waiting
Gloria Wofford tries to be the model patient, but when it comes to taking all of her prescriptions, she admits she falls short. ; The 76-year-old retired Pittsburgh
social worker often cannot afford the $1,600 for one three-month prescription. She
has had to leave the medicine at the pharmacy or simply not fill it. “It’s a night-
mare,” she says. ; That nightmare is shared by more and more people, according to
a recent study by Philadelphia-based information services provider Wolters Klu-
wer Health. Prescription abandonment—the term used to describe when a patient
submits a prescription to a pharmacy but never picks it up—is on the upswing.
In fact, it went up by 34 percent from 2006 to 2008, the survey notes. ; “We don’t know
what caused the increase,
but we believe the economy
has had an impact on the rate
patients are walking away
without their medicine,” says
Dea Belazi of Wolters Kluwer.
; Registered pharmacists
such as Kristen Binaso of
Clifton, N.J., see it happening
every day. A spokeswoman for
the American Pharmacists As-
sociation, Binaso says health
care costs will eventually rise
because people who skip med-
ication must take even more
medication—or use emergency
services—in the future. —Angela

Bryant Starke
What’s Your Risk of ID Theft?
Just when you’d figured out how to get your credit score, another
important number crops up: your ID
score, which can alert you to your
risk for identity theft. ; In
use for a decade by finan-
cial institutions and other
creditors, the ID score cal-
culates the risk that cus-
tomers are who they say
they are. Now for the first
time, San Diego-based ID
Analytics, one of the companies
that develop and sell the score to
businesses, is making it available
to consumers for free on the web-
site www.myidscore.com. ; You
must fill out contact information
(no Social Security number is re-
quired) and answer some simple
questions about your
financial history. The
result is a score be-
tween 1 and 999. The
higher the score, the
more you are at risk for
identity theft. If your
score is high, a link is
provided to the nonprofit Identity
Theft Resource Center, which can
help you learn how to protect your-
self. —Cathie Gandel

; Now Hear This
People, Trends and Ideas

Pet Project
Among the coolest warriors in New York’s
war on animal abuse is Nicholas Richard
Maccharoli Sr., aka Batso (above), a tat-
tooed 75-year-old auto customizer. He’s one
of a beefy group of do-gooders whose feats
on behalf of exploited dogs, cats and other
animals are being chronicled on National
Geographic Channel’s new series Rescue
Ink Unleashed. “I came out of nothing,” says
Batso, referring to a troubled childhood. “I
wanted to be something before they put the
dirt on me.” Chris Albert, a spokesman for the
cable channel, says, “Without [the squad],
some of these abused animals wouldn’t have
a chance. And the guys feel they’re giving
back to society in a positive way.”
Looking Westward
Apparently the West may have the right stuff:
Adults age 65 and older living in the West say they
feel younger and healthier than do their counter-
parts living in other parts of the United States,
according to a Pew Research Center survey. That
doesn’t surprise University of Utah associate pro-
fessor Scott D. Wright, who researches aging and
environmental issues. “The western United States
is a magnet, drawing aging baby boomers that al-
ready have an active lifestyle,” he says. The survey
also notes that 77 percent of older adults in the
West say they exercise daily, compared with 69
percent in other regions. —Mike Tucker