Word: reach
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...America is not yet ready for a vast social change that came upon it rather suddenly. "It used to be," says Ken Dychtwald, a young, blunt-spoken gerontologist in Emeryville, Calif., "that people didn't age. They died." When the Republic was founded, a newborn child could expect to reach 35. Today Americans could well live into their 90s -- and live well too. In 1950 people 65 and over made up just 7.7% of the population. Now the number is up to 12%, and it will reach 17.3% by 2020. Fastest growing of all is the group 85 and over...
When the social costs of the age quake -- the arrival of the baby boomers into their golden years -- are tallied, the figures become even more alarming. The $50 billion spent on health care for the old when Reagan came into office is expected to reach $200 billion by the year 2000. Between 1980 and 2040, experts project a 160% increase in physician visits by the elderly, a 200% rise in days of hospital care, a 280% growth in the number of nursing-home residents. Between now and the year 2000, a new 220-bed nursing home will have...
...monthly check. Argues Horace Brock, president of Strategic Economic Decisions Inc. in Menlo Park, Calif.: "There may have been a social contract that what you put in you got back, but not six times what you put in." Unless the system is revamped, he warns, when the baby boomers reach retirement age, Social Security will be in jeopardy. Just as alarming, the trust fund that supports the hospital-insurance part of Medicare could be bankrupt...
...three-way battle drags out and grows bitter. For months the Bush campaign counted on its broad support and organization in the Southern states as a "fire wall" against any damage suffered in the early contests. But if Dole and Robertson continue to scorch him, Bush may not reach his fire wall intact -- and the others must hope that the spreading conflagration does not destroy the party's chances of keeping the White House...
...Bone mass reaches its peak in the 30s for both men and women, then begins to drop by about 1% a year. In women the rate surges for a few years after menopause. About 24 million Americans, the vast majority of them women, develop osteoporosis, a condition in which the bones become dangerously thin and fragile. Brittle bones are the major cause of the fractures, particularly of the hip, that cripple many of the elderly. Alcohol and tobacco use accelerates bone thinning. Another reason to stop smoking: women who use tobacco reach menopause about two years earlier than women...