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  • Memories of Joan Fontaine

    by Rose Madeline MulaJoan Fontaine in screen shot for Suspicion

    The year, 1940. The place, the Embassy Theater, a movie house in Waltham,Massachusetts. Unlike the sterile, stark cubicles that serve as screening rooms today, the spacious Embassy was a fantasyland. It boasted a ceiling of twinkling stars against a midnight-blue sky, a huge screen draped in lush, red velvet; gilded, highly-ornamented walls; uniformed (and cute!) ushers; and a richly-carpeted, imposing lobby with a grand staircase curving upward to the balcony seats. In short, the Embassy was an enchanting oasis in a dreary former mill town that had morphed into a nondescript watch manufacturing city.

     I was twelve years old, painfully shy, self-conscious, gawky, and near-sighted. In that pre-contact lenses era, I was condemned to wearing glasses and enduring the “Four Eyes!” taunts of mean-spirited classmates, which did not inspire confidence. But at the Embassy I forgot my insecurities as I got lost in the wonderful world of the silver screen. One day in 1940 a memorable movie mesmerized me —Rebecca, starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. He was handsome, wealthy, aloof. She was awkward, timid, withdrawn. She was me! Except she was lovely. But she didn’t think so. Hey! Could it be that maybe I, too, was pretty behind my glasses but just didn’t realize it? I have never identified so strongly with a character in a movie.  And when she implausibly won the heart of the brooding Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), I was as ecstatic as if he were carrying me off to be his wife and the mistress of his mansion, Manderlay — which was even more magnificent than the Embassy Theater.

    The only scenario that was even more incredible was that the woman on that screen would one day become my friend — we would correspond, chat on the phone, and even visit each other’s homes. No way! Man would walk on the moon before that happened!

    Well, of course, man did eventually walk on the moon; and, equally miraculously, the glamorous Joan Fontaine of Hollywood, California, did meet and befriend the shrinking violet from Waltham, Massachusetts. Both events occurred many years after that day in 1940 when Rebecca captured my soul and took up permanent residence there as my favorite movie of all time. Surprisingly, it was the least loved work of its beautiful star, even though it had won her an Oscar nomination.

    I learned of Joan’s aversion to Rebecca when I first met her in 1975 when I was Operations Manager of the Chateau de Ville, a chain of five theaters in New England, where I had the privilege of working with many of the idols of my youth — including the fabled Joan Fontaine, who had come to star in our production of Cactus Flower.

    The Chateau’s shows played each of our five theaters for a month, and my responsibilities included overseeing housing for the casts in each location — Spartan furnished apartments for supporting players and more luxurious digs for our stars. For the first leg of Joan’s Cactus Flower tour with us, I had found a lovely apartment for her on Boston’s Beacon Hill, overlooking the Charles River.

     As soon as she was settled there, I was dispatched to pick her up and drive her to Connecticut, Cactus Flower’s next venue, so she could inspect some housing choices I had lined up for her there. I hadn’t yet met her and was both excited and extremely nervous. When she opened the door, I gushed, “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Miss Fontaine! I absolutely loved Rebecca!” I expected a “Thank you!” or at least a smile. Instead, my compliment was greeted with a frown and disconcerting silence. Huh? What was that about? I feared I was going to have to carry on a one-sided dialogue all the way to Connecticut and back. Fortunately, however, as we started down the highway, she began to relax, and conversation became very easy. She was witty, friendly and warm. Soon I felt comfortable enough to ask her who had been her favorite leading man.

     “Charles Boyer,” she responded immediately. “He was a true gentleman. Working with him was a joy.”

  • Get a Grip on That Steering Wheel: You’re Getting Older But Still Like the Wind in Your Hair

    How's My Driving

    The US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)  announced a new strategic plan that will serve as a roadmap to ensure the safety of our nation’s growing population of older drivers and passengers.

    “Safety is our highest priority and that includes ensuring the safety of our older drivers, who represent a growing population on our roads,” said US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “This plan will help enhance safety for everyone by helping states address the mobility needs of their older drivers.”

    Since 2003, the population of older adults, defined as age 65 and older, has increased by 20 percent and the number of licensed older drivers increased by 21 percent, to 35 million licensed older drivers in 2012.

    In 2012, according to NHTSA’s latest issue of Safety in Numbers, 5,560 people over the age of 65 died, and 214,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes. Those figures represent a 3 percent increase in the number of fatalities and a 16 percent increase in the number of injuries from the previous year. The data also show that older adults are at greater risk of dying or sustaining serious injuries, even in low-severity crashes. To address these concerns, NHTSA is focusing on the following:

    • Vehicle Safety: NHTSA is researching a number of advanced vehicle technologies including vehicle-to-vehicle communications, collision avoidance and crashworthiness, that could help reduce the risk of death or injury to older occupants in the event of a crash. Crash avoidance technologies will benefit all drivers, but may be of special assistance to older drivers, while certain crashworthiness improvements could help address the special vulnerabilities of older occupants. The agency is also considering upgrades to its New Car Assessment Program, including a new “Silver” rating system for older occupants.
    • Improved Data Collection: NHTSA is refining its data collection systems and will continue to evaluate crash rates, real-world injuries, as well as physical, cognitive and perceptual changes associated with driver behaviors. In addition, NHTSA plans to conduct clinical and naturalistic driving studies to better understand the effects of age-related medical conditions, including dementia.
    • Driver Behavior: Recognizing that age alone is not a determining factor for safe driving, NHTSA continues to focus its efforts on public education and identifying functional changes including vision, strength, flexibility and cognition to help at-risk drivers. This effort includes first-of-its-kind Older Driver Highway Safety Program Guidelines that states can implement to keep older people safely mobile.

    “Although older drivers are some of the safest drivers on our roads, our plan builds upon the NHTSA’s current work to help older people drive as safely and as long as possible,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland.

    NHTSA’s Older Driver Highway Safety Program Guidelines are based on best practices around the country and include countermeasures that can be implemented to ensure the safety of older drivers, including at-risk drivers. The guidelines encourage state highway safety offices to work closely with driver license officials, state departments of transportation, medical providers and aging services providers, among others. View NHTSA’s Highway Safety Program Guidelines.

    Read about Older Driver Safety in NHTSA’s latest issue of Safety in Numbers, a new online monthly newsletter on hot topics in auto safety – including problem identification, people at risk, and recommended practices and solutions to mitigate injury and death on our nation’s roadways. It includes tips for older drivers, problem identification and information on people at risk.

    >> View NHTSA’s 5-Year Traffic Safety Plan for Older People

  • Two For the Holly

    Christmas time is coming: This goose is getting fat.              European Holly

    A little taste of this, and a little dab of that,

    A sprinkling of sugar, a bit of needed tasting

    Produce in me a syndrome that is sadly known as waisting.

     

               ******************************

     

    The evening before, there’s a terrible pall

    For tomorrow I know that I must hit the mall,

    And therefore, my mood is decidedly dark,

    Since I’m sure that there will be not one space to park.  

     

    — A SeniorWomen.com contributor

    Ilex aquifolium, a photo by Jürgen Howaldt; Wikipedia

  • Michigan State Senator Gretchen Whitmer: “This tells women that were raped and became pregnant that they should have thought ahead and planned for it”

    Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D – East Lansing) and Senator Rebekah Warren (D – Ann Arbor) called for the immediate repeal of legislation passed on Wednesday, December 11th to prohibit health insurance providers from providing abortion insurance to women in Michigan unless they purchase a separate abortion rider in advance.

    “Whether a planned pregnancy has gone horribly wrong and a woman needs a medically necessary D & C procedure, or the deplorable and devastating acts of rape or incest have resulted in an unwanted pregnancy, the Senate Republicans’ passage of this cold-hearted rape insurance proposal means Michigan women now have to anticipate the unimaginable and plan to have these unspeakable things happen to them,” said Senator Whitmer. “This is the height of hubris and paternalism that a room full of men have decided they are fit to dictate the terms of Michigan women’s health care, that they can make this decision recklessly without giving a moment’s consideration to the various personal circumstances we women face, and it is an appalling example of political pandering that the Michigan Legislature is bending to the whims of a single high-powered and extreme special interest.”

    Last week, the State Board of Canvassers approved a petition submitted by Right to Life of Michigan which would prohibit insurers from including abortion coverage in their health insurance policies unless women purchase a separate rider ahead of time. The Michigan Legislature was given 40 legislative session days to make a decision on whether or not to vote on the issue. While many argued the legislation should have been allowed to go before the voters in the next election, Republican legislators ignored such requests and opted to move forward with the proposal.

    “To even claim that women will have the option of abortion insurance under this initiative is deceitful. Michigan is not the first state to take action on this issue; seven other states have already enacted this legislation. In five of these seven states, purchasing an abortion rider is not even an available option,” said Senator Warren. “In passing this initiative, we are allowing that 4% of Michigan’s people to dictate the health care options for 100% of Michigan women. For that reason, I firmly believe that this policy must be repealed as an insincere representation of the will of the people.”

  • Selfie, Science and Twerk: The English and American Premier Dictionaries Reveal Their Word of the Year Lists

    Radcliffe Camera, Oxford

    selfie noun, informal(also selfy; plural selfies)

    a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website

    The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a word or expression that has attracted a great deal of interest during the year to date. Language research conducted by Oxford Dictionaries editors reveals that the frequency of the word selfie in the English language has increased by 17,000% since this time last year.

    The Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, England as viewed from the tower of the Church of St Mary the Virgin. Photograph is the work of David Iliff. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

    Selfie can actually be traced back to 2002 when it was used in an Australian online forum.  The word gained momentum throughout the English-speaking world in 2013 as it evolved from a social media buzzword to mainstream shorthand for a self-portrait photograph. Its linguistic productivity is already evident in the creation of numerous related spin-off terms showcasing particular parts of the body like helfie (a picture of one’s hair) and belfie (a picture of one’s posterior); a particular activity – welfie (workout selfie) and drelfie (drunken selfie), and even items of furniture – shelfie and bookshelfie.

    Judy Pearsall, Editorial Director for Oxford Dictionaries, explained the decision: “Using the Oxford Dictionaries language research programme, which collects around 150 million words of current English in use each month, we can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of selfie in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as Word of the Year.”

    The Word of the Year need not have been coined within the past twelve months, but it does need to have become prominent or notable in that time. Selfie was added to OxfordDictionaries.com in August 2013, although the Word of the Year selection is made irrespective of whether the candidates are already included in an Oxford dictionary. Selfie is not yet in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), but is currently being considered for future inclusion.

    The earliest known selfie

    Research shows the word selfie in use by 2002. The earliest known usage is found in an Australian online forum post:

    2002 ABC Online (forum posting) 13 Sept.
    “Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer [sic] and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.”

    The rise of the selfie

    Judy Pearsall explained the evolution of the word selfie: “Social media sites helped to popularize the term, with the tag ‘selfie’ appearing on the photo-sharing website Flickr as early as 2004, but usage wasn’t widespread until around 2012, when selfie was being used commonly in mainstream media sources.

    “In early examples, the word was often spelled with a -y, but the -ie form is more common today and has become the accepted spelling. The use of the diminutive -ie suffix is notable, as it helps to turn an essentially narcissistic enterprise into something rather more endearing. Australian English has something of a penchant for -ie words – barbie for barbecue, firie for firefighter, tinnie for a can of beer – so this helps to support the evidence for selfie having originated in Australia.”

    The Word of the Year shortlist

    In alphabetical order, the shortlisted words for the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013 are:

    bedroom tax, noun, informal:
    (in the UK) a reduction in the amount of housing benefit paid to a claimant if the property they are renting is judged to have more bedrooms than is necessary for the number of the people in the household, according to criteria set down by the government.

  • Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: Tiger, Tiger

    Tiger in Reserve

    I like cats, even those strays that find themselves in my backyard. I shoo them away just to protect the birds on my feeders but I know they only leave if they choose to; they own whatever territory they are in.
     
    Recently, I had the opportunity to expand my sense of backyard to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Pradesh, India. There was no guarantee that we would see any tigers as we drove around the national park but we were lucky and saw two, a male and a female, in different parts of the Reserve. Those cats were magnificent. There was no doubt about who owned this territory.  I was in awe as I sat in the open Jeep watching them stroll from the brush, unhurried and tolerant of the gawkers snapping their photos.
     
    It is hard to describe the impact of seeing a tiger in the wild. The animal is big, a housecat on unbelievable steroids. It has authority; the sheer bulk of its muscular body demands attention and caution. In this natural setting, its presence is both stunning and formidable. I felt privileged to have had the chance to see them unburdened by any cage, free in their own environment. Someone said that in a zoo people are the observers and the tigers are the observed but it is the reverse at Bandhavgarh — we are the observed and the tigers are the observers.
     
    I found it quite a stunning reversal of awareness. It opens up a new perspective of what it means to co-exist in a world that is home to a great diversity of beings. We need to respect, and often to protect, life in its myriad forms. The Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve is doing its part for the tigers.    
     
    Here are facts about and the history of Bandhavgarh National Park and its Tiger Reserve: http://projecttiger.nic.in/bandhavgarh.htm

    Editor’s Note: We’ve included a portion of the report issued by Traffic, a strategic alliance of WWF_logo.gif and IUCN_logo.gif; Traffic is the wildlife trade monitoring network.

    National Geographic carried an article, A Cry for the Tiger, with a photographic gallery in 2011: “We have the means to save the mightiest cat on Earth. But do we have the will?“

    Tigers under threat

    Today there are believed to be fewer than 2,500 breeding adult Tigers left in the wild, and their numbers are declining. Tigers are listed as Endangered by the IUCN.  The greatest threats to Tigers are habitat loss, poaching and lack of sufficient prey.

    Right: The Amur or Siberian Tiger P. t. altaica lives in the boreal forests of the Russian Far East © Kevin Schafer / WWF-Canon

    Habitat loss

    Once found across Asia, from Turkey to eastern Russia, over the past century Tigers have disappeared from south-west and central Asia, from Java and Bali in Indonesia and from large parts of South-east and East Asia.  Tigers have lost 93% of their historic range, and more than 40% of their range in the last decade. Much of the remaining habitat is becoming increasingly fragmented.

  • The Heart Breakers Strike: Esther Peterson, A Driving Force Behind the Equal-Pay Movement

    US Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez will induct the late Esther Eggertsen Peterson into the Labor Hall of Honor at  the Department of Labor headquarters in Washington Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 9:15 a.m. EST.

    As the director of the department’s Women’s Bureau, Peterson was the highest ranking woman in the Kennedy administration. In inducting Peterson, Secretary Perez will highlight the progress we’ve made and the challenges we still face to create opportunity for women in the workplace.Esther Peterson, 1962

    Following the Secretary Perez’s remarks, the Council of Economic Advisors’ Betsey Stevenson will moderate a panel on the status of women in the 21st century workforce. A live webcast of the induction and the panel will be available at http://www.dol.gov/dol/media/webcast/live/.

    Both events are occurring as part of an event recognizing the 50th anniversary of the American Women report produced by President Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women, of which Peterson was Executive Vice Chairman.

    Editor’s Note: The biography of Esther Peterson (below) first appeared in the May/June 2009 issue of The American Postal Work Magazine.

    Throughout her life, Esther Eggersten Peterson was “a powerful and effective catalyst for change,” notes a tribute to her in the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Among other achievements, she helped launch the women’s movement in the 1960s and was considered by many to be the driving force behind the equal-pay movement.

    Unusual Evolution

    Assistant Secretary of Labor Esther Peterson (far left) watches as President Kennedy signs the Equal Pay Act into law. As the JFK administration’s highest ranking female official, she led the fight to pass legislation establishing the principle of equal pay for equal work.

    Peterson’s life as a workers’ advocate had an unlikely beginning. Raised in a conservative Mormon household in Provo, UT, Esther Eggersten had been led to believe that unions were evil, as those around her strongly opposed a railway workers strike in 1918, when she was 12. But she was also raised to try to help others, she recalled in a 1995 interview, and to “Do what is right; let the consequences follow,” as her church taught.

    Peterson graduated from Brigham Young University in 1927, then moved to New York City, where she earned an advanced teaching degree at Columbia University and met Oliver Peterson. They married and moved to Boston, and in 1932 she was teaching at a prep school for well-to-do girls. She also had a second job, as a volunteer at a YWCA, where she taught classes for garment workers.

    One evening, most of her YWCA students failed to show up. Wondering why, Peterson discovered that they were staging a job action, and had gone on strike after their employer changed the style of a women’s pocket from square to heart-shaped. The new design took much longer to sew, but the company refused to increase the “piece rate.”

    At first, Peterson though the strike was a terrible idea. “I was raised thinking that [strikers] had bombs in their pockets and were communists.”

    But Peterson cared deeply for her students. Her visit to the home of one young woman revealed that it was basically a sweatshop, with her student’s family, including young children, gathered under a single dim light, doing garment work. “The women had been making housedresses, a dollar- thirty-two-cents a dozen,” she told Common Cause magazine in 1995. “They couldn’t live on what they were making… It made me furious.”

  • Future Beauty at the PEM: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion

    “Not what has been seen before – not what has been repeated, instead new discoveries that look to the future” — Rei Kawakubo

     

    The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, MA is the exclusive East Coast venue for Future Beauty: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion, an exhibition of nearly 100 dresses, skirts, gowns and suits that celebrate the ingenuity and innovation of contemporary Japanese fashion designers. Since the early 1980s, designers such as Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto have reshaped couture as well as popular fashion and launched a revolution that marks the first time a non-Western culture has significantly transformed the global fashion world. Through innovations in form, technique, material and approach, Japanese designers have challenged conventional ideas of beauty and helped recast fashion as a vital and nuanced art form. Co-organized by the Kyoto Costume Institute and Barbican Art Gallery, London, Future Beauty is on view at PEM from November 16, 2013, through January 26, 2014.

    “The fashion designers featured in this exhibition are remarkable for their daring visions, bold wit and incisive creativity,” said Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, PEM’s James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Chief Curator and the exhibition’s coordinating curator. “Through their designs we are exposed to alternate definitions of beauty, new ways of considering the human form and insight into some of the most provocative artistic minds working today.”

    The fundamentals of haute couture in Europe and America — highly sexualized fitted forms, balance, finish, invisible tailoring and complementary color and pattern — are noticeably absent from contemporary Japanese fashion. Instead, imperfection, transience, austerity, asymmetry, roughness, simplicity and subtlety are valued. As designer Yohji Yamamoto affirmed, “I think perfection is ugly. Perfection is a kind of order … things someone forces onto a thing. A free human being does not desire such things.” The avant-garde visions featured in Future Beauty carve a new aesthetic path forward, one that bridges tradition and innovation while charting a new understanding of what beauty can be.

    In Praise of Shadows

    A watershed moment for Japanese fashion occurred at the now legendary Paris catwalk show in 1983 where designers Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto debuted their black and white collections. Asymmetric and sculptural, Kawakubo and Yamamoto’s forms enveloped, rather than revealed, the body in a way that radically rejected the trending obsession with body consciousness and form-fitting silhouettes. Through variability, imperfection and layering, Kawakubo’s Autumn/Winter 1983-84 ensemble seen here emphasizes the contrast generated by the textures and looseness of layered fabric. Their “new black” became the “in” color and widely influenced Western designers.

    Jun’ichir Tanizaki’s influential 1933 essay In Praise of Shadows is often credited for Japanese designers’ gravitation toward Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto . Fascinated with shadows as dynamic, shifting spaces, Tanizaki posited that, “the collision between the shadows of traditional Japanese interiors and the dazzling light of the modern age.”

    Tradition and Innovation

    fgAfter World War II, the development of synthetic and industrial fabrics expanded Japan’s legacy of creating sophisticated textiles. New techniques and processes were devised for weaving and dyeing a range of materials — from silk and paper to polyester and stainless steel — resulting in a host of new textures, visual effects and creative possibilities. Junya Watanabe’s voluminous honeycomb construction, seen in his Autumn/Winter 2000-01 Techno Couture collection, exemplifies this ultra-modern approach to fashion that unlocked the potential of using fabric as a sculptural material.

    Images: Koji Tatsuno, Autumn/Winter 1993-94, Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, Gift of Mr Koji Tatsuno. Photo by Richard Burbridge.
    Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons, Autumn/Winter 1983-84. Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, Gift of Comme des Garçons Co., Ltd. Photo by Masayuki Hayashi.
    Junya Watanabe for Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons, Autumn/Winter 2000-01. Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute. Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama.

  • Life on a String: Bead Masterpieces Representing Wealth, Symbolizing Gender and Social Status

    Necklace from Corning Museum

    Constellation Necklace, Kristina Logan. Lampworked glass and pâte de verre; sterling silver.  Collection of  The Corning Museum of Glass

    Symbolizing power, enabling ornamentation, and facilitating trade, glass beads are miniature masterpieces that have played significant roles throughout time and across cultures.  A major exhibition at The Corning Museum of Glass explores glass beads and beaded objects made by various cultures. On view to January 5, 2014,  Life on a String: 35 Centuries of the Glass Bead  showcase works from the large historical glass bead collection at the Corning Museum as well as objects on loan from seven institutions.

    “Glass beads are truly remarkable objects — they are the miniature masterpieces of the Museum’s collection,” says Karol Wight, executive director and curator of ancient and Islamic glass. “These works are important not only for their artistry, but also for the way they are used to convey social and political messages, and for the manner in which beading traditions have been carried on over many centuries.”

    Life on a String explores the use of glass beads for fashion and ornament, as symbols of power and wealth, as traded goods, and as objects of ritual, as well as illuminate the processes of beadmaking and beadworking. The exhibition will present nearly 200 objects, many of which have never before been on display.

    Highlights include early Venetian chevron and millefiori beads, Roman mosaic beads, West Africa bodom beads, Egyptian eye beads, Chinese horned eye beads, Japanese magatama beads, Bohemian beads imitating precious stones, North American beadworked garments, and contemporary beaded objects by Joyce Scott  and David Chatt.

    The size of glass beads often belies their importance. They can represent wealth, symbolize gender and family relationships, or indicate social status, all through meaning signified in their color and patterning. Economic and political relationships around the globe — especially during the period of European colonization — are embodied in the beads manufactured in Europe and distributed in Africa and North America. Their styles influenced indigenous bead production, and ultimately, beads made in formerly colonized lands followed a reverse course back to Europe.Beaded Bottle with Stopper

    Traded globally for centuries, glass beads are among the earliest attempts at glass production and have been found at ancient glass manufacturing sites in the eastern Mediterranean from the second millennium B.C. The beads in the exhibition demonstrate the variations in manufacturing techniques used to create beads and beaded objects through time.

    Beaded Bottle with Stopper. European, probably Russia. Date 1840 – 1860

    A loom for beading and molds used to make powdered glass bodom beads is on display along with images of beads being produced around the world, to illuminate the vast and rich history of techniques for bead production.

    A new companion book, Glass Beads: Selections from The Corning Museum of Glass, by exhibition curator Adrienne V. Gennett, former curatorial assistant of The Corning Museum of Glass, now assistant curator of collections and education at the University Museums at Iowa State University, with contributions by Tina Oldknow, the Museum’s curator of modern glass is available to purchase. The book features fifty highlights of beads and beaded objects in the Museum’s collection. On October 18-19, 2013, the Museum hosted its Annual Seminar on Glass focused on glass beads and beadwork through time and from around the world.

  • For Medicare Drug Plans, the High Cost of Doing Nothing

    Medicare’s Web site will search for competing prescription drug plans in your zip code.

    by Charles Ornstein
    ProPublica, Dec. 2, 2013, 9:07 a.m.

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    My Thanksgiving ritual each year consists of heaps of turkey, corn casserole and apple pie — as well as quiet time devoted to helping relatives choose Medicare prescription drug plans for the following year.

    Most people partake in similar gorging, but not enough spend the time to compare health plans for their relatives. My experience this past weekend is a particularly instructive example of how costly it can be to do nothing.

     With open enrollment for 2014 drawing to a close this Saturday, there’s little time for delay. (The process of picking a drug plan in Medicare is totally different from using healthcare.gov, the federal health insurance exchange for people under age 65 who are not in Medicare.)

    Unlike Medicare’s hospital and doctor benefits, which are managed by the federal government, seniors and disabled people needing drug coverage must choose a subsidized, privately run plan under contract with Medicare. The 36 million enrollees in the program usually have dozens of choices that offer an array of monthly premiums, deductibles and copayments. The plans have different preferred drugs and different requirements for prior approval for expensive generics.

    Depending on the drugs each person takes, some plans are much cheaper than others.

    Sounds good so far, but there’s a giant catch: Once a person signs up for a plan, his or her enrollment continues from year to year if the person does nothing — even if the plan raises its prices and tightens its requirements. It’s up to enrollees to determine if there’s a better choice, and they can switch plans once a year (during open enrollment).

    Consider my in-laws, who live near Dallas.

    Last year, I helped them pick a pretty awesome plan that cost each of them $31.10 per month. It has no drug deductible, meaning they didn’t have to pay out of their pockets before their drug coverage began. And generic drugs cost them nothing. Both only take generic drugs — several of them, mind you — and their annual drug costs were less than $375.

    But if they had chosen to stay with their plan for next year, prices would have exploded. Their monthly premium would have increased to $47.10 and they would have had drug co-pays of at least $3 per prescription. When you add it all up, my mother-in-law’s annual costs would have more than tripled, to $1,146, and my father-in-law’s would have increased to $1,086.

    That’s a steep price for doing nothing.