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Hurdles of Health and Wealth

The number of adults 65 and older will double by 2030 and increase two and a half times by 2050, Kennedy notes, citing her Chapter 7, “Aging: The Changing Human-Services Needs of the Third Age” in Greater Phoenix Forward (2008).

In Arizona, the population 60 and more will increase from 17 to 25 percent between 2000 and 2020, and Arizonans 85-plus will increase by 102 percent over the same period, she adds.

In fact, Kennedy explains that the Arizona Department of Economic Security predicts a 21 percent increase in Maricopa County’s population among those 65 years and older between 2007 and 2012.

Still, as Kennedy, Starns and Markwood agree, health is pivotal: “With today’s medical care, the third of your life we once called old age is no longer one dimensional,” Starns says. “We are healthier and living longer, and that offers all of us great opportunities.”

Time was, 65 was the terminal age, the last stop: Beyond, and you were lucky. Today, our stronger health systems result from better nutrition, improved lifestyles and medicines. Later-life good health is attainable and maintainable.

Papago-Park-Teri-Kennedy

Kennedy notes that this will, of course, make new demands on the human-services infrastructure for home and community-based services, behavioral health services and transportation resources. In general, health care is the central issue as to how we see ourselves as we age and defining aging, she emphasizes. Costs continue to grow and, as medical advances continue to extend lives, so will our choices: Who gets the transplants, the cell technologies, the medicines?

As a result, Starns stresses planning, both for health care and other costs associated with the opportunities of aging: travel, lifestyle, families. “Plan for 25 years longer than your parents did,” she recommends. “Think about needing not just one source of income, say, Social Security, but as many as three sources in order to handle the ups and downs of a long life.”