On the Aging Beat

May 9, 2026

AI illustration by Nano Banana 2

Welcome to the inaugural issue of On the Aging Beat, a review of recent age-related developments. Since I began these posts more than four years ago, the growing volume and breadth of such news justifies a weekly guide.

Items include free weblinks or a paywall alert.

They knew they were dying soon, so they threw a party

Living funerals – events where people near the end of life plan and attend their own memorials – are becoming increasingly popular.

Half of Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer Don’t Get Treatment, Study Finds

More than half of patients with metastatic lung cancer don’t receive life-extending treatments, like chemotherapy, immunotherapy and targeted therapy, a new study found. While the research couldn’t pinpoint why, experts suggest a constellation of barriers, including access issues, fatalism and shame.

Coming Soon: CMS to Provide $50 Monthly Access to GLP-1 Medications for Medicare Beneficiaries

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will provide eligible Medicare beneficiaries access to certain GLP-1 medications for $50 per month beginning July 1, 2026, through December 31, 2027.

A New Medicare Option for Weight Loss Drugs: What Older Americans Should Know

KFF Health News explains how the new CMS $50 benefit will work.

CMS Moving Prior Authorization into the 21st Century

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), said in a blog post that Medicare is working with major health companies to create an electronic interface for processing prior authorization requests that will be operational next year. “It is way past time to axe the fax, kill the clipboard, and put patients over paperwork,” the post said.

“The current prior authorization process creates unnecessary delays for patients, burdens health care providers with excessive paperwork, and erodes trust between payers and health care providers, even though all share the same goal: delivering high-quality patient care,” it added. “Completing prior authorizations costs health care providers $20-50 per hour and takes an average of 13 hours per week. On average, that’s nearly $34,000 and 700 hours a year per health care provider that could otherwise be spent caring for patients.”

In a Milestone for A.L.S., a Treatment Helps Some Patients Improve

The drug is for a small subset of patients. But evidence that breathing and strength can get better for some of them is remarkable for a paralyzing, usually fatal disease.

UnitedHealth to Make It Easier for Patients to Get a Range of Procedures

“UnitedHealth, parent of the biggest U.S. health insurer, said the changes will slash the number of reviews by nearly a third starting later this year,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Doctors have long complained about the paperwork they must complete to get insurers’ permission for care, which can lead to delays and denials. UnitedHealthcare will stop requiring signoffs for tests including echocardiograms, some chiropractic care and certain outpatient surgeries. Also on the list is some outpatient therapy.”

The oldest millennials are 45! This tool helps plan for longevity

NPR’s Morning Edition walked listeners through a tool called the Longevity Preparedness Index that was developed by the MIT Age Lab. The index is based on eight variables tied to longevity – care, community, daily activities, finance, health, home, life transitions, and social connection. “Leveraging a US representative sample of over 1,300 American adults,” researchers explained, “the index assesses preparedness across each of the eight domains, assigning a score (of 0-100) for each domain alongside an overall score. The inaugural Index found that America scores a 60 out of 100 in longevity preparedness, indicating significant room for national improvement.”

Why social circles shrink and how to build them back up

Strong social connections are linked to living longer, feeling happier and even lowering the risk of cognitive decline later in life.

Hoping the Last Check Bounces … and Other Financial Approaches to a Long Life (Paywall)

Americans are increasingly dealing with a dilemma: How to balance a long life with having enough money to live it happily.

Farewell to The New York Times

Margaret Renkl, a wonderfully observant writer, recently left the newspaper and explained her reasons in a social media post.

My last byline appeared in The New York Times on March 2. People keep writing to ask where I’ve been, but for a long time I was too sad to respond. For nine years I wrote a regular column for the Times, and now I don’t. Those are the facts of the matter. The reasons are harder to explain.

In almost every way, this column has been a gift. When they first invited me to be a contributing opinion writer, the department’s editors urged me to use their megaphone to celebrate what I care. about most and to spotlight the injustices that break my heart. “Write about what interests you,” the deputy editor said. “If it interests you, our readers will find it interesting too.”

For more than a decade, if you count the one-off pieces I wrote before I was under contract, I got to learn about a huge range of subjects and to explore them using an array of narrative strategies. I got to meet inspiring people who are standing up for their neighbors and for the only habitable planet we have. Some of those columns are collected in “Graceland, At Last,” which was published in 2021 as a joint venture of the Times and Milkweed Editions.

I had the unfathomable luck of working with editors who were in tune with my storytelling voice and also with the issues that most animate me as a writer and as a human being. For any writer, it is an incredible gift to have an editor who understands. To have one who makes the writing clearer and stronger and yet still honors the writer’s own voice? I have been writing for a very long time, and I know how rare and lucky it is to work with an editor like that.

But the world has changed since 2017, and the news cycle has heated to an unending boil. In a burning world like this, there is less and less room for the quiet voice of a generalist who dislikes arguments that land like a two-by-four across the brow. There is less room, too, for editors who encourage that kind of writing.

Last year, my brilliant longtime editor was reassigned. The wonderful editor he hand-picked for me left the paper ten months later. Soon after her departure, it became clear that what I want to write, as well as how I want to write it, are no longer a good match for the Times. I retracted the last piece I wrote for that space and went on my way.

For more than a decade I got the chance to write for the greatest newspaper in the world. I don’t think anyone could leave behind such a gift without some measure of grief, but I have not for one second regretted the decision. And that clarity is its own gift.

I don’t know yet what my next steps will be. For now, I am concentrating on writing the sample chapters for a book proposal. But I have not yet learned to turn off the part of my brain that is always scanning for column topics, always saving links for the next time a development in the news will give me the chance to write about something I love or about someone who is quietly making the world better. Someday I may come back to this kind of work—through a newsletter, perhaps, or by way of some other media outlet—but for now I have a book to write and grandbabies to love on. That’s enough.

Stay safe, be kind, and don’t look away.

I am the principal author of Simon & Schuster’s Get What’s Yours series of books about Medicare, Social Security, and health care. Linked In.