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By Stan Hinden | April 2010
One of the nice things about retirement is that you don't have to limit your enthusiasm-whether it be for football, baseball, basketball or hockey. Retirement gives you time to attend games or watch them on TV. It gives you time to soak up the news about your favorite teams and players-and it lets you become your own sports expert.
If, however, sports contests are not your main passion, do not be dismayed. There are many other areas of life where unbridled enthusiasm is also rewarded. In my own case, the subject that lights up my switchboard is public policy.
Why? The reason is quite simple. As a newspaper reporter, I covered national politics, then the financial markets and, finally, the field of retirement. Year after year, I was awash in political, economic and social issues. As a result, the current struggle over health care reform is every bit as exciting to me as the World Series or Super Bowl is to a sports fan.
Retirees who share my interest in the formation of public policy will have no trouble following the debates over the great issues of our times.
In the Age of the Internet, certain key web sites can enable you to quickly become extremely well-informed about important public policy issues.
Here are six of the web sites that I find most useful and informative:
The Kaiser folks cover the health care field like a blanket. Research is their stock-in-trade. Almost anything you want to know about health care issues can be found in their electronic pages. Kaiser produces in-depth studies of Medicare, Medicaid, Medigap insurance and the Medicare Part D prescription drug program. The Kaiser site also uses national tracking polls to sample the way Americans feel about health care reform and other health issues. If you happen to be looking for a side-by-side comparison of the Senate, House and Obama administration proposals on health care, the Kaiser site is where you will find it.
The Kaiser Family Foundation operates a companion service devoted to health care news. The Daily Health Policy Report offers extensive coverage of news developments in the health care field. Better yet, the web site allows you to sign up to get your health news by e-mail. KHN offers two morning editions, an afternoon edition and a breaking news alert service. The e-mail reports make it easy to stay on top of health care news. Their e-mail "sign up" button is at the top of the KHN home page.
The Mature Market Institute web site has a clear commitment to studying and analyzing all aspects of aging, retirement and social change. In a recent web presentation, MMI researchers explored the topic: "Boomers in the Middle. An in-depth look at Americans born 1952-1958."
The site also offered reports on "Working Caregivers and Employer Health Care Costs" and "The New Realities of the Job Market for Aging Baby Boomers." Over time, the MMI web site covers a lot of important public policy territory.
Policy people love numbers. And there are few more reliable places to get useful numbers than at EBRI, a 32-year-old Washington research institute. EBRI conducts studies of a broad range of subjects affecting the employee benefits of both workers and retirees. A nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, EBRI does not take policy positions and does not lobby.
EBRI distributes its numerous studies through a steady flow of "issue briefs," "fast facts" and press releases. A recent issue brief analyzed "The Impact of the Recent Financial Crisis on 401(k) Balances." And a recent "fast facts" sheet reported on "Trends in Retiree Health Benefits Offered by Employers." Through the years, EBRI also has paid special attention to the saving patterns of American workers. Most often, the news in that department has not been good.
In any event, if you're looking for meaningful numbers, EBRI is where you'll find them.
The granddaddy of Washington think tanks, Brookings churns out an endless stream of research reports and commentaries on a wide variety of domestic and international subjects.
In early March, the Brookings web site offered visitors an article on the February 2010 national employment situation; an update on events in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq; a report on U.S.-China relations, and a story about the possible demise of the federal surface transportation program.
Many of the topics are contained in short daily "Up-Front" blogs written by the academics and experts who reside at Brookings.
A visit to the Brookings web site always leaves me feeling: "There are a lot of really smart people in that place."
Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Pew Research Center operates under the banner: "Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World." The Pew Research home page, on a day in March, contained a smorgasbord of 25 stories on topics as diverse as: "Reviving America's Global Image" and "Does Google Make Us Stupid?"
The home page also offered a new Pew study of attitudes among members of the Millennial Generation, individuals from 18 to 29 years old. Simply put, the Pew Research site is a gold mine for studies about economics, energy, environment, immigration, journalism and the Internet.
Indeed, if there is one word that seems to characterize the information coming from the Pew Research Center, it is the word "authoritative." The folks at Pew have worked hard to establish that sense of authority.
All in all, whether you are new to public policy or an old-timer, these six web sites will keep you up to speed on what's happening in the policy arena.
Copyright 2010, Stan Hinden. All rights reserved. Reprint permission required.
The author was compensated for writing this article by AARP Financial.
