A report by the Alliance for Aging Research says women in America face later life in ways that are fundamentally different from the way men experience old age.
By age 85, American women outnumber men 2.5 to 1 and women provide 75 percent of the caregiving, usually for a spouse who is in declining health. The report says women are far more likely than men to be poor, more likely to be widowed, more likely to be chronically ill and more likely to end up in a nursing home.
Not surprisingly, the report calls for changes in the way medicine is practiced and how care is reimbursed.
It recommends more support for home and community based long-term care, while reexamining government policies that require Americans to spend down to the poverty level before receiving financial help.
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