Social Security benefits are
set to increase 3.6 percent next year, for the first time since 2009. But the
home energy assistance program, LIHEAP, is facing significant cuts, and levels
of funding for Medicare and Medicaid are up for debate. We look at some of the
challenges and realities of life for older Vermonters living on fixed incomes
with John Barbour, executive
director of the Champlain Valley Agency On Aging, and Greg Marchildon, the Vermont state director of AARP.
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Also on the program, we go on a field trip to Addison to
learn more about the migratory snow geese that have become so familiar there
over the years. In the 1990s as many as 50,000 of these arctic migrants would
come down in the fields around the Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area each
fall. But these days there are far fewer geese taking a break in Vermont.
We talk with Bird Diva Bridget Butler about why the
dwindling numbers don’t mean the birds are in trouble. In fact, there’s an
overabundance of snow geese that wildlife officials have been struggling to
manage in recent years.
CVAA Senior Help Line: 1-800-642-5119
Dead Creek Waterfowl Management Area Phone Number: 802-759-2398