GBONEWS: Saying sixteenth Journalists in Growing old Fellowships; USC Well being Reporting Fellowships; Pulitzer Finalists; 17 Conflicts in Home’s Large Finances Invoice; Medicaid Cuts Would Hit Medicare; Alzheimer Plan’s False Hopes; Older Immigrants Battle; Medicaid Work Necessities and Seniors; & MORE.

3. GEN BEATLES NEWS: *** Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Cleo Krejci Wins 8 Awards, together with $25,000 Middle for Integrity in Information Reporting Prize.

1. EYES ON THE PRIZE

*** sixteenth Journalists in Growing old Fellowship Purposes to Open Quickly: Our reporting fellowship acquired green-lighted once more. GBONews’ writer, the Journalists Community on Generations (JNG), and our educational associate, the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) will begin accepting functions from working reporters (employees or freelance) to take part in our 2025-26 program for masking the wide-ranging points on getting older in America. 

Fellows will obtain a $1,500 stipend, plus all bills coated to attend the Boston convention in November. Purposes should embody a one-to-two-page story pitch for a long-term, in-depth venture about any research-based facet of getting older, to be accomplished and revealed within the spring of 2026. These chosen will additionally produce a short-term story on any topic about getting older, which doesn’t require a proposal within the software. 

New Fellows will be part of the roster of 245 alumni journalists from mainstream, ethnic, senior press  or group media. For the reason that program’s begin in 2010, Fellows have produced greater than 850 tales in all varieties of media. Many have originated in non-English shops serving U.S. audiences, from El Tiempo Latino to Sing Tao Each day, in addition to in general-media shops, such because the Washington Put up, Science Journal, NPR Information, and quite a few native newspapers. 

Chosen fellows will attend GSA’s 2025 Annual Scientific Assembly, which can happen November 12-15, 2025, in Boston. The convention will result in 4,500 professionals in gerontology from world wide, a lot of whom will current their analysis in a whole bunch of symposia, papers, and examine posters on practically each matter in getting older.

Reporters will discover concepts for brand spanking new tales and contemporary angles on topics from Alzheimer’s illness to creativity to Social Safety, Medicaid and Medicare. Matters will vary from the newest organic discoveries to public coverage panels on federal cuts and the way states and native providers are dealing with the brand new austerities. 

Each employees journalists and freelancers should apply with an settlement by his or her editor/producer, to just accept the long-term venture proposal as an editorial task for seemingly publication or broadcast. Candidates who double as their outlet’s editor/producer needn’t present a separate letter or e-mail, however they need to make their twin function clear within the proposal. For instances wherein the unique media outlet doesn’t launch a venture story, the Fellow is obligated to position it in a comparable information or data medium. 

When you’ve got questions concerning the fellowships, contact this system’s Co-Administrators, Liz Seegert, (liz@lizseegert.com;  (516) 225-9636), program coordinator of JNG; or Todd Kluss (tkluss@geron.org; (202) 587-2839) GSA’s director of communications. You might also contact GBONews editor Paul Kleyman, who’s co-founder and Senior Advisor to the fellowship program, pfkleyman@gmail.com, (415) 821-2801.

This system is presently supported by grants from Silver Century Basis, The Commonwealth Fund, The John A. Hartford Basis, and Nationwide Institute for Well being Care Administration Basis (NIHCM). 

*** Well being and Local weather Change Reporting Fellowship:  These fellowships from USC Annenberg’s Middle for Well being Journalism help reporting tasks on bodily well being, psychological well being or each “with an eye fixed to the systemic inequities that worsen the impression of climate-related disasters and delay restoration for households and communities. Initiatives ought to deal with how local weather change and well being performs out in america in a dangerously warming world.” Apply by September 3, 2025. 

These are top-rated fellowships that can deliver chosen reporters to Los Angeles for 2 days of intensive coaching, Nov. 13-14, 2025. Fellows obtain a reporting grant starting from $2,000-$10,000 relying on venture analysis and journey wants (see web site for particulars). It additionally consists of 5 months of one-on-one mentorship from a veteran journalist, in addition to month-to-month digital conferences with fellow journalists. 

Their web site states, “This program is designed to have a look at the interplay of local weather change and human well being.” USC doesn’t need proposals for catastrophe protection, however this system does invite in-depth venture pitches on well being results from publicity to disasters, comparable to wildfires, hurricanes and so forth; air pollution; government-systems accountability; and different areas of reporting outlined on the web site. Results on getting older or intergenerational impacts must be welcome. 

*** Growing old-Related Finalists of 2025 Pulitzer Prizes: The Pulitzer’s identify solely a winner and as much as two Finalists in every class. (See the entire checklist of winner and Finalists on the hyperlink right here to the Poynter Institute web site.)

For Investigative Reporting, the Wall Road Journal’s group of Christopher Weaver, Anna Wilde Mathews, Mark Maremont, Tom McGinty and Andrew Mollica produced “a lucid, complete collection that exposed how insurance coverage corporations gamed the Medicare Benefit system and picked up billions of {dollars} for nonexistent illnesses whereas shunting costly instances onto the general public.”

For Explanatory Reporting, ProPublica’s Annie Waldman, Duaa Eldeib, Max Blau and Maya Miller’s 10-story venture, “America’s Psychological Barrier,” was a Finalist for his or her “deep and haunting examination of how insurance coverage corporations quietly, and with little public scrutiny, deny psychological well being providers to these in want.”

Additionally a Finalists, within the Public Service class, was the Boston Globe, with contributions from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Venture, “for its sweeping protection of the monetary mismanagement of a significant hospital chain, exposing how company malfeasance, private greed and authorities neglect led to compromised care and deaths.” (The Globe blocks nonsubscribers with a tough paywall with no less than a $1 fee for single-story entry.) 

2. THE STORYBOARD

*** “Home Republicans Cross Finances Reconciliation Laws: What’s New In The Protection Provisions?” by Katie Keith, Well being Affairs (Might 23, 2025): GBONews strongly recommends that reporters not solely see this text, but in addition comply with their reporting for correct, thorough analyses and summaries. 

What’s Coming: “Within the early hours on Might 22, 2025, the U.S. Home of Representatives handed the One Large Stunning Invoice Act on a party-line vote of 215 to 214, with one member voting current. The multi-trillion greenback, greater than 1,000-page invoice was launched, marked up, and handed by the Home in lower than two weeks. . . Reflecting the fast turnaround, the Congressional Finances Workplace (CBO) has but to completely rating and assess the underlying laws that was launched simply final week, not to mention the modifications adopted late on the night of Might 21 earlier than passage by the Home. From right here, the Senate will take into account the bundle.” 

Fangs Out: “Preliminary CBO evaluation reveals that the One Large Stunning Invoice Act would severely erode social security internet packages by slicing practically $1 trillion over 10 years in Medicaid and SNAP [food stamps] alone. This consists of no less than $698 billion in cuts to the Medicaid program and no less than $267 billion in cuts to the SNAP program. These modifications would shift prices to states to the tune of no less than $78 billion in new prices. Even with these cuts, the invoice would enhance the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion. Observe that these are conservative estimates.”

Abstract—17 Gross Modifications: “The One Large Stunning Invoice Act, if enacted as handed by the Home on Might 22, would considerably reshape entry to well being protection and care in America. Many of those modifications are described intimately in prior articles . . . At a excessive stage (and amongst many different modifications), the Home invoice’s health-related provisions would:

* “Burden low-income Medicaid enrollees and states by way of new obligatory work necessities for a lot of candidates and enrollees, extra frequent eligibility redeterminations for Medicaid growth enrollees, new copays for sure low-income Medicaid enrollees, and new limits on retroactive protection.

* “Prohibit the ways in which states can elevate income to help their share of the Medicaid program by stopping states from establishing new supplier taxes to assist fund their Medicaid program, freezing present taxes at their present fee, and modifying the standards that federal officers use to evaluate sure well being care-related taxes for functions of Medicaid.” And 15 extra bullet factors on track.

*** “How Medicaid cuts would impression Medicare enrollees,” by Mark Miller, Retirement Revised on Substack (Might 19, 2025):  The Lede: “Polling by KFF reveals that fewer than one in 5 adults (17%) wish to see Medicaid funding decreased, and most suppose funding ought to both enhance (42%) or be stored about the identical (40%). These Medicaid cuts would have a devastating results on medical insurance protection for tens of millions of People. Much less understood: The cuts additionally would impression a major share of individuals enrolled in Medicare.”

The place: “A presentation . . . on the annual Medicare Summit convened by the Middle for Medicare Advocacy [showed]the attainable direct and oblique results . . . would particularly impression people who find themselves eligible for each Medicaid and Medicare (the so-called “twin eligible” inhabitants).” 

Hey, GOP, Received Growing old Dad and mom? Duals “represent one-fifth of Medicare beneficiaries, and account for a disproportionate share of Medicaid spending. That’s as a result of they make up the older a part of the Medicaid inhabitants–and due to this fact they are typically sicker and want extra healthcare. They account for 14% of the Medicaid inhabitants, however virtually 30% of spending.” 

Editor’s Unhealthy Stunning Barb: That’s, GBONews readers, “duals” aren’t all “poor.” With Medicare paying just for shorter post-hospital stays, federal-state Medicaid has turn into de facto middle-class insurance coverage for over 60% of all nursing dwelling residents and plenty of in assisted residing, after any personal insurance policies run out. Others, together with properly getting older, educated white professionals, could discover their funds drone-bombed by astronomical prescription drug costs. When their financial savings sink, guess the place they flip to remain operate, alive – and voting? 

*** Additionally from Mark Miller, “Retirees, Get Able to Want Lengthy-Time period Care. Right here’s What to Know,” New York Instances “Retiring” column (Might 24, 2025): The Dek – “Demand and prices for care are rising on the similar time {that a} labor scarcity threatens to worsen. How are you going to plan for this want now?” 

Boomers: “In 2026, the oldest child boomers will begin turning 80, an age when the percentages of needing care develop. The U.S. Census Bureau forecasts that the variety of folks 85 and older will practically double by 2035 (to 11.8 million folks) and practically triple by 2060 (to 19 million).”

Care Scarcity: “On the similar time, the care trade has a scarcity of employees that’s pushed partly by low wages. The median hourly wage for all direct care employees was $16.72 in 2023 — decrease than the wage for all different jobs with related or low entry-level necessities, based on an evaluation by PHI, a nonprofit analysis and coverage group. 

Specialists worry that scarcity can be exacerbated by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Immigrants make up 28 % of the long-term care work drive — a determine that has been rising in recent times, based on KFF, a well being coverage analysis group.”

*** “Who’s Affected by Medicaid Work Necessities? It’s Not Who You Suppose,” by Sara Rosenbaum, Marc A. Cohen, Jane L. Tavares and Alison Barkoff, Milbank Quarterly Opinion (April 30, 2025): Should you don’t already know this extremely regarded journal consists of incisive evaluation of well being and social developments by main students, comparable to these authors from 

George Washington College and UMass Boston. With many Home and Senate Republicans urgent for strict Medicaid work necessities that will disproportionately affecting older employees—and few youthful ones–who could face age discrimination, so this evaluation is very pertinent at present.

The Lede: “For the reason that Reasonably priced Care Act (ACA) Medicaid growth handed in 2010, Medicaid work requirement proponents have sought to persuade policymakers that the Medicaid working-age grownup inhabitants is dominated by younger, ‘able-bodied’ adults who merely don’t work. This assertion is opposite to a mountain of proof displaying that the overwhelming majority of working-age adults (aged 18-64) insured by way of Medicaid are both working, caring for relations, or exempt due to well being points. Nonetheless, these baseless claims persist.”

The Research: “Utilizing what the authors cite as ‘responsive data’ provided by 23 states, a new report from the Basis for Authorities Accountability (FGA) argues that ‘most Medicaid beneficiaries don’t work in any respect.’ Legally, a ‘responsive document’ is a time period of artwork underneath the Freedom of Info Act that means a ‘document supplied by a authorities in response to an data request.’”  

Who’s Affected: Overwhelming proof reveals what can occur underneath broad mandates that tie well being care to compliance with work reporting: Affected folks, together with employees and doubtlessly exempted individuals are unable to navigate the reporting maze, lose their well being care, uninsurance charges rise, and employment charges don’t change. .

The article goes on, “We analyzed knowledge from the 2023 American Group Survey (ACS), the Census Bureau’s gold commonplace annual inhabitants survey and the premier supply of extremely detailed details about People. The survey incorporates data collected from over 3.5 million households relating to a number of features of life, together with earnings, well being and well being care, household and residing preparations, and work standing.  

Key Findings:  

* “Medicaid enrollees labeled as able-bodied symbolize solely 15.8% of the entire nonworking Medicaid inhabitants ages 18-64 (and solely 8% of the entire Medicaid inhabitants). 

* “4 in 5 (79.2%) non-working adults thought-about able-bodied “are ladies, with a mean age of 41. One in 4 (26%) is over age 50. Their median earnings is zero. They stay in households with annual incomes averaging underneath $45,000 and a mean family dimension of 4.4. In different phrases, they’re exceptionally poor ladies on the older finish of the working-age spectrum.

* “They aren’t wholesome younger adults simply hanging out. Though they could not have present well being issues, many are middle-aged ladies or older, and 1 / 4 are older than 50. They’re very poor, have restricted schooling, the bulk as soon as labored, most have left the workforce, and now they look after household and can’t afford to lose their very own well being care.”

*** “An Costly Alzheimer’s Life-style Plan Provides False Hope, Specialists Say,” by Lindsay Gellman, New York Instances (Might 21, 2025): The Dek – “1000’s of individuals have paid for Dale Bredesen’s unconventional program to reverse Alzheimer’s signs. The medical institution says there’s little to no proof it really works.”

The Lede: “Kerry Briggs had hassle maintaining observe of the dietary supplements. To assist, her husband, John Briggs, created a spreadsheet with rows for ashwagandha, Omega-3 and curcumin extract. There was ginseng, lion’s mane mushroom and the antioxidant liposomal glutathione, too.

‘Ms. Briggs, 64, had began taking the dietary supplements final July, a every day routine that grew to incorporate 34 capsules and tablets together with two scoops of powder. . . . However the suggestion that Alzheimer’s may be reversed by way of life-style changes has outraged docs and scientists within the medical institution, who’ve repeatedly stated that there’s little to no proof for such a declare, and expressed concern that the thought might hurt a big group of susceptible People.” 

Unverified Claims: “Mr. Briggs had come throughout the thought after studying about Dale Bredesen, who had been performing a collection of small and unconventional research by way of which he claimed to have designed a set of tips to reverse Alzheimer’s signs. ‘Very, only a few folks ought to ever get this,’ Mr. Bredesen informed an viewers final July, referring to cognitive decline. . . . Mr. Bredesen’s 2017 ebook, The Finish of Alzheimer’s, has offered round 300,000 copies and have become a New York Instances finest vendor.”

Who: “Mr. Bredesen, 72, was as soon as additionally a prime neurologist on the College of California, San Francisco, however he has not had an lively medical license for a lot of the previous three many years and doesn’t see sufferers anymore. . . .  Regardless of many years of analysis and the event of just a few drugs with modest advantages, a remedy for the illness has remained elusive.

“However quite a lot of folks near Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and aligned with the ‘Make America Wholesome Once more’ motion have claimed that Mr. Bredesen’s analysis factors to an answer. Calley Means, a prime adviser to Mr. Kennedy, considers himself a fan. Mr. Means’s sister, Dr. Casey Means, who President Trump has picked for surgeon basic, has referred to as Mr. Bredesen “a medical hero” of hers.” 

The Science: “The Alzheimer’s Affiliation, which helped fund Mr. Bredesen’s earlier and extra standard analysis, sees his latest strategy as insufficiently rigorous.”

A Quote: “As we speak, many individuals see the medical and pharmaceutical industries as ‘pushed by greed,’ stated Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, the director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown College.  ‘They overlook, nevertheless, that the “pure medication” motion additionally could also be exploiting them.’” 

Editor’s observe—This institute was established by the household of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., who was an aviator killed throughout World Warfare II, and the uncle of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) 

*** “Older Venezuelans within the U.S. battle with shifting immigration insurance policies,” by Clavel Rangel , Chicago Caregiving(Might 1, 2025): Observe — Clavel Rangel is a Venezuelan journalist and co-founder of the Community of Journalists from the Venezuelan Amazon.

The Lede: (“Mariela Sucre, a Venezuelan asylum seeker, has spent the previous few weeks feeling completely overwhelmed. There’s an excessive amount of on her plate: working, caring for her 86-year-old mom (who has dementia), and ready on an asylum case that hasn’t moved within the seven years since she arrived in america.

“Now, she faces a brand new fear: the Trump administration’s rollback of immigration protections. ‘It feels extremely unstable,’ says 64-year-old Sucre. ‘I used to suppose, in the event that they lastly referred to as me for an interview, my asylum could be granted; I’ve all of the proof. However now, it seems like nothing is assured, it doesn’t matter what you’ve got.’ Her case is certainly one of 1000’s caught in limbo.’ ”

A Quote: “Ana Gil, director of the Illinois Venezuelan Alliance, a nonprofit that helps migrants in Chicago, says older migrants expertise much more uncertainty than youthful ones as a result of every day emotional stress of shifting immigration coverage.

“She says the alliance repeatedly sees older migrants experiencing despair, nervousness, and social isolation. ‘Older adults aren’t afraid of deportation — they’re afraid of being detained of their dwelling international locations,’ she says. ‘These are individuals who entered the U.S. with correct documentation, believing they’d no less than two years of authorized stability.’” Sucre and her mom arrived within the U.S. in 2018 to flee political persecution on Venezuela’s Margarita Island, the place they’d lived most of their lives.

Who: “A former legal courtroom decide, Sucre says the federal government eliminated her from the bench as a result of she refused to align with its agenda. . .  Within the U.S., she works as a supply driver.”

One other Supply: “Organizers behind the Venezuelan American Caucus — a corporation that builds networks of lively, knowledgeable Venezuelan-Americans — have heard many tales like Sucre’s for the reason that Trump administration started dismantling protections for Venezuelans, together with short-term protected standing.” 

*** “You Don’t Want a Spreadsheet to Know We’re Failing Nursing Residence Residents,” by Eric Goldwein, Growing old in American Information (AiA Information, Might 27, 2025):