While the GOP debates have become our new favorite reality TV show and most of our dinner-table talk starts with "where will we move if Trump wins," this election season has certainly captured the world's attention. But there are a few things that nobody is talking about, and we and our Huff/Post50 Facebook friends wish someone would. Here are six things we'd like someone running for president to say.
1. "We need to put some teeth into our age discrimination laws."
Older workers are among the first to lose their jobs in layoffs, stay out of work the longest, and have been saying for years how they are experiencing age discrimination in the hiring process. It all falls on deaf ears.
Silicon Valley's tech companies may be the biggest offenders. Facebook may be the favorite social network for baby boomers and mid-lifers, but don't look for any gray hairs on the company's payroll; its workforce's average age is just 28.
But here's the craziest part: The laws that govern the EEOC don't empower the agency to protect us against age discrimination. Gender is a protected class in employment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but age is covered by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. That means the EEOC has no legal authority to demand that companies track the age of their workforces.
Raymond Peeler, Senior Attorney-Advisor in our Office of Legal Counsel at the EEOC, told The Huffington Post that all companies with at least 100 workers must file an annual report listing the race and sex of their employees, but nothing gets reported to the EEOC about the age of their workforce.
So until the EEOC is given a set of working dentures, older job applicants will continue to send their resumes into the black hole of the Internet, rarely getting interviews -- and then, in a bizarre twist of the knife, the company can trot out their interest as proof of its due consideration of older people.
2. "Here's my plan to help the middle class afford to send their kids to college."
There is no place where the middle class feel more squeezed than when it comes to paying for college. There is need-based aid for low-income kids. High-income families presumably don't need help. And for everyone else there is a FAFSA form that basically craps all over the middle class. The middle class is told it earns too much money to be eligible for financial aid. Basically, if you quit your job, your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) will be lower and your student eligible for more aid. With private colleges carrying a price sticker of $60,000 and up, and public schools so impacted by budget cuts that it takes six years to graduate, increasingly, middle-class families are imploding.
Germany, Finland and other European nations have managed to offer free university educations to the world -- that's right, not just their own citizens but any country's citizens. As Huff/Post50's senior editor Shelley Emling reported, almost 50,000 U.S. students are pursuing degrees overseas, according to the most recent data from the Institute of International Education. The United Kingdom is the most popular destination, followed by Canada, France and Germany.
These nations offer American kids a free higher education for one reason: They hope our kids will immigrate and stay there. Yes, we are having our very own brain drain. So, is this how America is going to be great again?
3. "We need to seriously monitor the rising costs of prescription drugs."
Across the country, people are finding that the cost of their medicines has doubled, tripled and in some cases soared by 1,000 percent or more, reports AARP. The price spikes have been so steep and seemingly out-of-the-blue that the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging held a hearing to investigate.
Nobody is sure why. Generic drugs, which are about 80 percent of all prescriptions, used to be the big pharmaceutical bargain. But even the generics, -- some which have been around for years and typically cost a penny a pill to make -- have suddenly spiked. AARP noted that the widely used antibiotic known as Doxycycline hyclate (100 milligrams) went from $20 for 500 capsules in October 2013 to a staggering $1,849 in April 2014. Pravastatin sodium (10 mg), a drug for cholesterol, surged from $27 to $196 for a one-year supply.
Sure, Martin Shkreli, the founder and chief executive of Turing, became the poster boy for evil Big Pharma when overnight he raised the price of Daraprim, a a drug used to treat a life-threatening parasitic disease, from $13.50 to $750 per tablet. But he and Turing aren't the only ones.
After Valeant Pharmaceuticals acquired two heart drugs, Isuprel and Nitropress, from Marathon Pharmaceuticals, they promptly raised their prices by 525 percent and 212 percent respectively. Marathon had acquired the drugs from another company in 2013 and had already quintupled their prices, reported the New York Times.
4. "I know you paid into your Social Security your entire working life, and you don't have to worry about losing it."
Talk about music to a middle-aged pair of ears. Many boomers just want their money. The hand-wringing is that Social Security will run out of money -- not necessarily for the current crop of retirees or about-to-be retirees, but their children and grandchildren could inherit an empty piggy bank unless something is done. The program is expected to be able to pay full benefits until 2033 and then just 75 percent of benefits after that -- assuming nothing changes. Politicians have offered at least a dozen different ways to keep Social Security on life support for future generations. People who are nearing retirement would like some reassurance that their money is there for them. Operative words: their money.
5. "Medicare needs to pay for what you actually need."
Medicare, the health insurance system for those 65 and older, is a giant labyrinth fraught with land mines. The problem, of course, is that you never know where a land mine is until you step on it.
The same is true of your coverage. Medicare won't pay for hearing aids or glasses or dental care -- the big trifecta of health concerns for older people. Nor will it pay for foot care or an ambulance ride to the ER if it decides after the fact that you could have gotten yourself there by taxi instead. So chest pains that scare the bejesus out of you but turn out to be what you ate for lunch? You should have hailed a cab.
Medicare covers a lot of stuff -- although you need to know where the gaps in coverage will result in that old saying about how you are just one illness away from being broke. It doesn't cover long-term nursing home care and the only way it will pay for short-term nursing home care is if you are moved there directly after spending at least three nights in the hospital. No stopping at home to pick up your toothbrush or clean underwear.
Medicare also has a lot of "gotcha" moments. Why can't Medicare be made more straight-forward? Simplify it and cover the services those who are 65+ need most.
6. "Older workers will be retrained, not put out to pasture to fend for themselves."
The country is filled with people in their late-50s and 60s who want and need to work for pay. In many cases, they lost their jobs in the recession and haven't been able to recapture their footing in a job market that favors youth and technology. It's been largely left to community colleges and the private sector to retrain these workers and help get them back on their feet -- and those programs have reached just a mere fraction of those who need the help.
Filling potholes is not without its merits when a president is looking to create jobs to stimulate the economy. But what about starting programs that offer displaced workers retraining in fields where the jobs are: health care and technology?
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