PHOENIX — One hundred years old and legally blind, Lucille Myers couldn’t travel to the State Capitol from her Phoenix home Wednesday, so her caretaker, Cyndy Scheidle, made the trek to Senior Action Day for her.

State funds allow Myers to remain in her home while Scheidle checks in to help with groceries, laundry and prescription pickups. So when Scheidle heard the program was in danger due to state budget cuts, the Surprise resident wielded a picket sign bearing Myers’ face to lobby her legislators.

“It’d sure make her living situation difficult,” Scheidle said. “We keep seniors independent in their own living environment so they don’t have to go into nursing homes or assisted living.”

Cuts of $153 million from the Department of Economic Security’s fiscal 2009 budget have left many seniors lacking essential services, said Lupe Solis, associate director for advocacy for AARP Arizona, which organized the event. More cuts in fiscal 2010 would be devastating, she added.

“What we’re trying to do is raise awareness and consciousness,” Solis said. “The aging community cannot afford any more cuts.”

Several dozen sign- and banner-bearing seniors from around the state marched around the Capitol esplanade, chanting slogans and chatting up their legislators.

AARP estimates that the home-care system that serves nearly 8,000 people statewide costs Arizona $2,200 annually per person compared to upwards of $24,000 annually per person to house a senior in public long-term care facilities.

Dick Morse of Peoria, the 82-year-old federal liaison for AARP Arizona, said caring for seniors in their own homes is a win-win.

“We’ve got a general legislative goal of protecting the most vulnerable of our citizens,” he said while manning an information booth in front of the State Senate building.

Many attendees came north via bus from District 23, which covers most of Pinal County and parts of Gila and Maricopa counties between Tucson and Phoenix.

The district’s representative, Barbara McGuire, D-Kearny, came down from her office to join her constituents. She said cuts to Meals on Wheels, state facilities and senior transportation programs are on the table this year too.

“Do they expect these people to become homeless transients living on the streets?” she said. “We need to make their today the tomorrow that they worked so hard to achieve.”

McGuire added that the cuts affect rural Arizona the most.

“Rural areas suffer, I think, more hardship than the urban areas,” she said. “Urban areas have more resources.”

Winkelman resident and World War II veteran Gordon Tebben, 88, said he and his 92-year-old wife, Belan Cluff, are lucky enough to enjoy a pleasant retirement. Unfortunately, he said, some seniors in his area aren’t so lucky.

“It’ll hurt them most,” he said. “The politicians always talk about how they’re going to hit the rich. Well, it’s a reverse in this situation.”

Dale Vaughan, a 77-year-old Mammoth resident, said he hopes Gov. Jan Brewer accepts the maximum federal stimulus dollars possible and allocates some for seniors. He said he doesn’t understand concerns that some GOP leaders nationally have raised about strings attached to stimulus money.

“I think that’s a bunch of malarkey,” he said. “They should match any fund that the federal government is offering.”

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Arizona’s senior citizens

— By 2020, 26 percent of Arizonans are expected to be over the age of 60. That figure stood at 17 percent in 2000.

— By 2030, the number of Arizonans over age 65 is expected to equal that of children 17 and younger.

— In the decade leading up to 2005, the number of Arizonans over age 85 increased 82 percent, more than any other age group.

Source: Aging 2020, Arizona’s Plan for an Aging Population, Governor’s Office.

PHOENIX – The number of sometimes violent mentally ill patients being housed in nursing homes next to frail senior citizens in Arizona increased by 39 percent between 2002 and last year, according to statistics prepared for The Associated Press.

In 2002, there were 979 mentally ill patients ages 22 to 64 housed in the state’s nursing homes. That figure was 1,357 last year – a 39 percent increase, according to numbers obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and prepared exclusively for the AP by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Arizona’s trend of growth in the number of mentally ill nursing home residents mirrors a national trend and ranks 34th among the 50 states. The nation overall saw a 41 percent increase; Utah, Nevada, and Missouri were the states with the highest percentage growth, according to the figures.

The AP review found numerous instances of seniors across the country being assaulted, raped and even killed by younger, stronger residents with schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder.

Among the forces behind the trend are the closing of state mental institutions, a shortage of hospital psychiatric beds, and more room in nursing homes because today’s elderly are healthier than the generation before them and more likely to stay in their homes.

The Arizona Department of Health Services, which oversees the state’s nursing homes, declined repeated requests to discuss the issue.

“The problem is, when they mix populations, when they take a mentally ill individual and place them with a frail, incapacitated elderly person, that’s a prescription for harm,” said Martin Solomon, a principal at the law firm of Solomon & Relihan in Phoenix.

The law firm handles elderly abuse cases, but Solomon could not recall an Arizona case in which a senior was assaulted by a younger, mentally ill patient.

Nutrition programs for Arizona seniors will get a nearly $2 million boost through federal stimulus dollars released Wednesday.

The money will be used for meals at senior centers as well as those delivered to homebound elderly.

“We’re excited that on a national level, individuals know of the plight of seniors,” said Jim Murphy, chief executive of the Pima Council on Aging. “Our concern now is the state level.”

Arizona’s share is $1.3 million for meals served in such communal places as senior centers, as well as $657,147 for home-delivered meals, such as Meals on Wheels.

Diana Edwards, program director of the Pima Council on Aging, estimates that 15 percent of each of these amounts will go to Pima County.

A distribution formula based on several factors, including the number of people age 18 and over as well as the number of people with disabilities, will decide the exact amount the county gets.

The money comes from a $100 million infusion of stimulus dollars into the Older Americans Act. The state must provide a 15 percent match to trigger the federal dollars.

Officials with the state Department of Economic Security said they are working with various community groups to identify the needed matching dollars.

In Pima County, about 2,000 meals are delivered to homes and 2,100 congregate meals are served in senior homes a day, Murphy said.

The Arizona Republic contributed to this article.

DOUGLAS – The U.S. Border Patrol says a Douglas grandmother had her two grandchildren with her when she tried to smuggle a marijuana-stuffed purse into the country.

The Border Patrol said Sunday that the 43-year-old grandmother and a Tucson woman filled their purses with 10 pounds of marijuana worth $16,000 and tried to sneak it into the U.S. at the Douglas port of entry on Saturday.

The agency says the women were nicely dressed and were driving a Chevy Suburban.

Agents chose their vehicle for routine inspection and soon after became suspicious of the purses. That’s when they found the pot.

Agents seized the vehicle and the marijuana, and the children were released to local family members. The women were turned over to U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement for further investigation.

PHOENIX — Advocates for senior citizens rallied Tuesday against cuts to a state program that provides in-home help such as bathing, dressing and grooming.

With additional cuts proposed for the coming fiscal year, some seniors relying on the program will be forced to move into nursing homes, representatives of groups including AARP said at the state Capitol.

“We need to raise up our voices because these people are voiceless and faceless because they are at home,” said Lupe Solis, AARP Arizona’s associate director for advocacy.

“These cuts are denying these people the dignity they’ve earned by working hard their whole lives,” said Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson.

As it closed a $1.6 billion deficit for the fiscal year ending in June, lawmakers cut $2 million from a program providing independent-living support for elderly and vulnerable adults through the Department of Economic Security’s Division of Aging and Adult Services. About 450 people over age 60 lost their services as a result, according to the DES Web site.

In all, more than 17,000 people statewide receive in-home care through the program, which had an appropriation of about $19 million before the cuts.

“These budget program eliminations and reductions are horrendous,” said Guy Mikkelsen, president and CEO of the Foundation for Senior Living.

“The impact of the cuts is that frail elderly people are abandoned when they need us the most,” said Timothy Schmaltz, coordinator and CEO of Protecting Arizona’s Family Coalition, an alliance of social service associations.

Solis, with AARP, said keeping seniors in their homes makes economic sense. She said the in-home care costs an average of $2,000 annually per person, while the Arizona Long Term Care System averages about $24,000 per person.

“People who are not receiving care deteriorate at home by themselves and end up in more costly care,” Solis said.

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Senior services

Key facts about an in-home care program for seniors operated by the Department of Economic Security Division of Aging and Adult Services:

— Services Provided: Assistance with bathing, dressing, grooming and other basic functions.

— Total Receiving Services: More than 17,000.

— Appropriated Money in Fiscal 2009: About $19 million.

— Amount Cut in Fiscal 2009: About $2 million.

— Number Who Lost Services: 450.

Source: Arizona Department of Economic Security

Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona can now sign up for personal health records.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is making two years of its health records available electronically to seniors in Arizona and Utah who agree to create personal health record accounts online with Google or three other companies.

The online records are password protected, much like an online bank account, and can contain information about medications, the participant’s health plan and health history.

For more information on the pilot project go to www.medicare.gov/phr.

Terri Cruz of Chicanos Por La Causa worked with Cesar Chavez in Phoenix.

They have seen much harder times than these.

They had Christmases when the only gift was a stocking stuffed with an orange, some walnuts and maybe a dime.

When they grew out of their shoes, some would have to go barefoot until the start of the school year brought a new pair.

They are the children of the Great Depression, but their memories are not bitter.

Today, they are thankful they lived during the 1930s.

That period taught them the value of hard work and saving money. It also taught them decency.

“I learned that people are what’s important,” said Terri Cruz, 81, who grew up in Tucson. “If people need help, you help them. If you have, you share.”

In 2008, many Americans are worried about keeping their jobs, paying their bills, and staying in their homes.

There are no indications that today’s financial crisis will mushroom into something as catastrophic as the Depression, but there is much to learn from the people who lived through it.

That period of the nation’s history was a defining experience for an entire generation because it lasted so long and was felt by so many.

“The Depression had depth and breadth,” said Jim Butkiewicz, an economics professor at the University of Delaware who studies the period. “It hit everybody or nearly everybody.”

Changing behavior

From 1929 until 1941, this country was an economic disaster.

First, the stock market crashed. Then, the work disappeared.

By 1933, one-fourth of all workers and one-third of all nonfarm workers were jobless.

From 1929 to 1933, about 11,000 of the nearly 25,000 commercial banks in the United States failed.

People lost their homes and their farms.

“That’s an experience that changes behavior,” Butkiewicz said. “When you try to explain to people today what the standard of living was like, they cannot fathom it.”

People old enough to remember the Great Depression were young when it happened.

They did not understand the influences that savaged the economy; they may not have seen the worry in their parents’ faces.

But they were changed by the 1930s in profound ways. The most evident change was in how they worked and how they saved.

“When I was 13, my aunt took me to the laundry, and I was pressing soldiers’ handkerchiefs,” Cruz said. “That money went back to the house. I was making 23 cents an hour.”

Barney Garmire, 93, grew up the son of sharecroppers in Indiana. He went into law enforcement, in part, because it was steady work. He was Tucson’s police chief from 1957 to 1969.

“You really take the job quite seriously in hard times because everyone else is after it,” the Phoenix resident said. “Times were tough. That means you work like hell.”

Finding happiness

During the Great Depression, the United States was a far more agrarian culture.

North Carolina State researchers say about half the population lived in rural settings, which meant people were better able to handle the most pressing need for a family.

After her parents died, Cruz, then 6, was raised by her aunt and uncle in Tucson. Her aunt and uncle raised 12 nieces and nephews, all orphans.

Her aunt had prickly-pear cactuses, so she could always make nopalitos to go with dinner.

“She was very good at planting vegetables, and she raised chickens,” Cruz said. “I don’t know how she did it, but she did.”

Children of the Depression learned many lessons during this country’s darkest financial hours.

They knew that jobs can disappear and savings can be wiped out.

“You take things as they come,” Garmire said. “You do your share to improve things. What you come across, you try to make it better.”

She never felt poor, never was unhappy

Terri Cruz, 81, has one vivid memory of her father.

“I can still see him standing in the middle of the street when the trains came in, and he would wave to the hobos riding the trains,” she said. “And he would say in a loud voice, to my mother, ‘Our guests are arriving.’ ” Her parents would invite the travelers home to share a meal.

Cruz lost her father when she was 5. She lost her mother when she was 6. She was raised by her aunt and uncle in Tucson in the depths of the Great Depression in a house full of children.

They had little money.

“For some reason or another, I don’t ever remember being unhappy,” Cruz, 81, said. “I did not feel poor. I’ve never felt poor.”

Cruz left school after the eighth grade and started working to help the family, which included 11 other orphans. She says she was glad to help.

“I may not be rich in money, but I am a millionaire. I have beautiful memories.”

Cruz had eight children of her own and has spent much of her adult life trying to help others. She still works as a social-services counselor in Phoenix for Chicanos Por La Causa, an organization that helps the socially and economically deprived.

“People are important. If people need help, you help them. You share.”

Lesson: Hard work will solve problems

“Barney Garmire was 14 years old when the stock market crashed in 1929.

He does not remember much about it, he says, because he lived in rural Indiana.

“My mother was working as a salesclerk making one dollar a day,” Garmire said.

His father, sometimes a sharecropper and sometimes a traveling salesman, lost both jobs.

That was when Garmire, now 93, said he realized that hard work will solve a lot of problems.

In high school, he worked seven days a week at a grocery store. He, too, made a dollar a day.

The money helped – it was about enough to feed a family dinner – but it went quickly.

He later got a job through the National Recovery Administration, a New Deal program.

“I got a 40-hour-a-week job making advertising signs. Forty cents an hour. That was $16, and I thought I was rich.”

The money helped his parents and his two younger sisters, Alice and Betty.

“I am not the type of person to sing the song of woe to you,” Garmire said from his apartment at the Beatitudes Campus in Phoenix. “There was never a day when I was unemployed.”

Garmire was married for 54 years and had two children, but hard work remained a constant.

He went into law enforcement. He eventually became chief of police in Eau Claire, Wis.; Tucson; and Miami.

“Law enforcement is steady work. If you were good at it, you were protected,” Garmire said. “And it was good work. It made for a nice career.”

Home grew crowded as times got tough

When Mickey Cohen, 82, was a little girl, there were four people in her home.

Just she, her brother and their parents.

The four of them lived in an apartment outside Pittsburgh.

By the time the Great Depression was over, there were 11 people living in their home.

The rooms were filled with aunts and uncles and other people who needed help making it through the tough times.

“I was sleeping on a day bed with Sophie Petzak, a 14-year-old my mother took in,” Mickey said.

Mickey’s husband, Mel Cohen, grew up near Mickey. He says now that it was better to be a kid in the Depression.

“I don’t think kids ever appreciate hard times,” he said. “Kids kind of fend for themselves.”

Mel, now a doctor, was affected enough, however, that he can remember his first paycheck when he got out of the Air Force.

“I was making $160 a month, and boy, I thought that was all right,” Mel said. “Plus, I could eat at the hospital.”

Now, the couple live in a comfortable north central Phoenix home. But the lessons from their childhood remain.

“These were very rough times, but I learned the most valuable lesson,” Mickey said. “You help people. That’s what my mother taught me. If you have, you help.”

Barney Garmire was the chief of police for Tucson and Miami during his career as in law enforcement.

One-year U.S. pilot program begins in January

Tina Torres feeds records into a high-speed scanner at University Medical Center. Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona and Utah can voluntarily participate in a test program to have their health records entered online so they are accessible by all of their health care providers.

Medicare is taking a step forward in making medical records accessible in Arizona by encouraging senior citizens here to put their health information online.

The state and Pima County hospitals and health centers have been working toward computerizing paper health records, but those records are not shared online.

Medicare is going further by making two years of its health records available electronically to seniors who agree to create personal health record accounts online with Google or three other companies.

The one-year pilot project starting in January in Arizona and Utah was announced Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Electronic health records “are owned by doctors and are under their control,” said Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, who spoke by phone at a news conference Wednesday. “Personal health records are under control of the patient. They can contain a wealth of information provided by the patient and their health plans.”

The online records are password protected, much like an online bank account.

“We want people with Medicare to become accustomed to using” personal health records, said CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems. “Time is short, especially considering the tsunami of baby boomers who are on the cusp of retirement.”

With online records, patients can choose to make their medical information available to family members, their physicians or other health care providers. That access could be life-saving in medical emergencies.

Eileen Oviedo, director of health information management for University Medical Center, said having online access to health records could be helpful for winter visitors who split their time between two states and two primary care physicians.

Since going electronic in June, Oviedo said, the hospital has received calls from out-of-state hospitals that need immediate copies of lab reports and discharge summaries. Patients who maintain their personal health records will be able to provide that information themselves.

“It should improve care and decrease costs,” she said. “I think that’s exactly what the goal of a personal health record is: to improve outcomes.”

Bob Thompson, El Rio Community Health Center’s chief information officer, is working to put all of the health center’s medical records in electronic form.

The implications of what Medicare proposes could provide endless opportunities for patients and doctors, he said.

The electronic medical records system he is setting up for El Rio eventually will have the ability to link to online personal health records.

“Really it’s not that complicated an idea,” he said. “I think that these days with so much Internet and cell phone access, most people have the technical skills to do something like that.”

Medicare chose four online personal health record companies for the pilot program: Google Health, HealthTrio, NoMoreClipboard.com and PassportMD. The companies will offer free or low-cost options ranging from maintaining the patient’s health record to connections to health care providers, pharmacies and others.

With the Medicare partnership, those who create personal health records online will also be able to download their Medicare history, including medications and claims, Weems said.

He said Medicare does not know how many people will participate, but said Arizona and Utah were chosen for the pilot because of the large number of beneficiaries, about 1 million total.

For those seniors who are willing to put their medical information online, the program could have great value, said Lydia Baker, the coordinator for the Pima Council on Aging’s Medicare health insurance assistance program.

“Having everything in one central place is excellent,” she said.

Seniors would most likely have to be computer savvy to participate, she said.

“It will be a hit with those that are already computer literate,” Baker said. “To think others will learn (how to use the computer) to do this, that is not realistic.

“People who don’t have or can’t use the Internet will lose out on this.”

Gov. Janet Napolitano launched the Arizona Health-e Connection in 2005 to develop a statewide computerized medical record system for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System’s providers. El Rio’s move toward electronic medical records is part of the state’s Health-e Connection and ultimately will allow it to share records with other community health centers in the Tucson area and the state.

Thompson and Oviedo expressed concerns about security and whether the online companies and patients could keep information private.

“How secure are they going to keep their passwords in terms of identity theft?” Thompson asked.

Oviedo said, “You don’t want everybody to be able to access your private information. You want to weigh the risk and benefit.”

Patients with chronic conditions who are on a large number of medications, though, may want to consider the program, she said.

“I think only good will come of this,” Oviedo said.

Registered nurse Meenakshi Vakkalanka updates medical records at a computer at University Medical Center.

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On the Web

Online personal health record companies that have partnered with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:

www.google.com/health

www.healthtrio.com/phr.html

www.nomoreclipboard.com/

www.passportmd.com/

Yuma pair win often in bowling, but value camaraderie more

Char (left) and Jeff Higham are at home in this Yuma bowling alley. The couple, who are winter residents of Yuma, are engaged in a spirited race to outrun, outbowl, outdance old age - and they're succeeding.

YUMA – If sporty and spry Jeff and Char Higham ever get bored and need a new way to exercise, they could always start lifting weights with all their gold and silver medals.

The winter residents of Yuma are engaged in a spirited race to outrun, outbowl and outdance old age – and they’re definitely in the lead.

In addition to all kinds of activities here and back home in Washington state, the Highams bowl over the competition each year at the Huntsman World Senior Games. The event, in St. George, Utah, brings together about 9,500 senior athletes from around the world for competition ranging from basketball and mountain biking to chess and table tennis.

The couple say the two-week event is a definite blast for folks too young at heart to slow down.

“On a scale of one to 10, the senior games are a sure 10,” Jeff raved, adding with a chuckle: “It would take a death in the family to keep me away.”

Jeff, 66, recently won a gold medal in men’s singles bowling and a bronze in team bowling at the 2008 event. Char, 65, brought home the silver in ladies doubles bowling.

Jeff has been competing at the Senior Olympics for nine years and Char has been at his side for the past two events.

Char boasts just one other medal, a bronze she earned last year in bowling, while Jeff has racked up 10 golds, eight silvers and six bronze medals.

Char swears she’s not sure why she keeps winning.

“Well it was sure a surprise to me,” Char said, laughing. “I’m really not that good at bowling. I’ve only been bowling for three years. Jeff has been teaching me.”

She added that medals aren’t even the best prizes that come from the games. To Char getting the gold boils down to the chance to meet other active folks from all corners of the earth.

“It’s the camaraderie,” she said with satisfaction. “You are meeting people from all over the world. You make friends and you see them again the next year and everyone catches up and it’s just a good experience.”

The Huntsman World Senior Games, which take place less than a two-hour drive from Las Vegas, calls itself “truly a celebration of life after 50.” The event draws athletes from all 50 states and about 20 foreign countries. In addition to 25 sports, the games also offer free health screenings, social events, banquets and a concert, plus an Olympic-style parade and opening ceremonies.

Jeff, who also plays softball, stressed how inspirational the games can be, demonstrating every day how age truly is a state of mind.

“There are guys out there with new knees and new hips, but they just keep on going,” he said. “There are players in their mid-70s and it’s great how strong they still are and how fast they can still run. It’s just amazing how the sport of softball is keeping old men young.”

The Highams own a house in Yuma, but their place in Ocean Shores, Wash., is their official home. Char is a retired grocery checker while Jeff is retired from civil service. They met on Yahoo Personals and have been married four years.

To keep active the Highams go dancing every chance they get, plus Char goes to Curves and Jeff plays in a senior softball league and also umpires. They also both belong to bowling leagues in Yuma.

“Each day that we’re able to get up and see the world, we’re going to get out there and be active,” said Char, a 15-year survivor of breast cancer. “You can’t just be sitting around doing nothing.”

Jeff stressed his amazement at how different senior years are for today’s generations. He recalled seeing his own mother and stepfather “dwindle away” because they didn’t have anything to keep them active in retirement.

“Our generation in our 60s is doing stuff our parents never dreamed of doing,” he said. “I think we’ve just kind of learned from that, that activity keeps you young. As long as you think young and keep active, you can stay young. This is the time of life when you’re supposed to enjoy it.”

PHOENIX — Arizona law enforcement agencies and broadcasters are establishing a new statewide system to get the word out to the public when there’s a missing adult considered to be in danger of death or serious injury.

With the new Arizona Endangered Person Alert System, local law enforcement agencies will submit reports on endangered missing adults to the state Department of Public Safety.

DPS then will check specifics of cases against criteria for use of the new program, officials said Wednesday.

Unlike the state’s Amber Alert program for abducted children, the notices for missing adults won’t be automatically broadcast on radio and television stations.

Instead, DPS will use an existing telephone and e-mail alert system to provide information to media outlets for distribution.

Also unlike Amber Alerts, the new adult alerts won’t be posted on urban area freeway signs, partly because the cases won’t involve the same time crunch as those involving abducted children, officials said.

Some other states have “silver alert” programs for cases involving missing seniors, but Attorney General Terry Goddard said the Arizona system can be used for any missing adults considered to be in serious danger and whose cases match the program’s preset criteria.

However, it’s likely that most notices will be for seniors with dementia who “get away from their caregivers, get away from their families,” he said. Particularly in summer months, “they might be at risk of a tragedy.”

Arizona Broadcasters Association president Art Brooks and DPS Lt. Jim Warriner said 57 Amber Alerts for children have been issued in Arizona since that program was established six years ago.

All those children were recovered safely but it isn’t known how many instances were due to alerts, Brooks said.

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On the Web

Arizona Broadcasters Association: www.azbroadcasters.org/

Department of Public Safety: www.azdps.gov/

Arizona Attorney General’s Office:www.azag.gov/

Prescription drug options will be dramatically reduced for thousands of elderly Arizonans next year as Medicare scales back the number of plans available to low-income seniors.

Medicare said two private drug plans will qualify next year for its program. That is down from the seven plans now available to more than 150,000 eligible Arizonans.

The change means thousands of low-income seniors can expect new plans that may include a different mix of prescription drugs and benefits.

The reduced choice is a result of insurance companies either opting out of providing Medicare coverage because it is not profitable enough, or submitting a bid that was rejected by the program.

The two available plans for 2009 are United Healthcare’s SierraRx Basic and Health Net’s Orange Option 1. The five eliminated from Medicare’s roster of Arizona drug plans next year are Humana’s PDP Standard, Sierra Rx, WellCare Classic and two UniCare plans.

Arizona seniors using the canceled drug plans will be automatically enrolled in either of the two remaining plans. They also have the option of enrolling in the more comprehensive Medicare Advantage plans, but they would have to pay for those. Analysts said many seniors living on fixed incomes may not be able to afford the premiums.

The lack of choice worries seniors, who fear that a limited selection of prescription drugs offered within the two available plans may not cover all their medications.

Advocates said recipients should closely check out what the plans offer to ensure they meet their prescription requirements. Enrollment for next year begins Nov. 15.

Anybody who moves to a new plan will have a 90-day transition period that allows them to get prescriptions from their old plans. Medicare also offers an appeals process for recipients to show they must have a certain drug for a medical condition.

Health Net and United Healthcare expect to mail out details of their drug plans, or formularies, to new and existing members over the coming weeks.

Health Net members will see co-payment increases of 5 to 40 cents.

Health Net spokeswoman Lori Rieger said members should find the right drug for their health condition, but neither drug plan could immediately say which drugs will be added or eliminated.

The plan changes stem from private insurance companies opting out of Medicare’s low-income drug plans or failing to meet Medicare’s financial thresholds of providing coverage for $16.22 per member per month. Some companies have found that serving the niche of low-income seniors is not profitable enough.

David Sayen, Medicare’s regional administrator in San Francisco, said the federal agency evaluated all drug plans based on a weighted average of all bids. Medicare accepted the plans that came in under the state’s average premium plan of $16.22 per month. Higher bids were rejected.

The average bids vary from state to state.

Arizona’s low-income seniors have fewer drug plan choices than every other state except Nevada, which will have one drug plan for low-income seniors next year, according to an analysis by Washington, D.C.-based consultant Avalere Health.

“We have seen this trend happen nationwide, but it is particularly acute in Arizona and Nevada,” said Bonnie Washington, vice president of Avalere Health.

Some insurers, such as Humana, opted to leave the business of low-income drug plans altogether, Washington said.

The insurer said it expected to lose all of its 308,000 drug plan members because its bid was not accepted by Medicare.

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Drug-subsidy cuts

Just two drug plans will be fully subsidized for low-income Arizona seniors next year, down from seven this year.

2008 plans

• Health Net Orange Option 1

• Humana PDP Standard

• Sierra Rx

• Sierra Rx Basic

• Medicare Rx Rewards Value

• Medicare Rx Rewards Standard

• WellCare Classic

2009 Plans

• Health Net Orange Option 1

• SierraRx Basic

Seniors in Arizona counties can request the values of their properties be frozen for the next three years by applying with their assessor’s office by a Sept. 1 deadline, but some may want to think twice before doing so.

That’s because residential property values in Arizona are set the year before they are applied to tax bills. Senior property owners could risk seeing their valuations frozen at levels assessed during the 2007 housing market – when overall values were higher.

“They’ve got to be careful,” Kevin Armbrust, supervisor of the Pima County Assessor’s Office exemptions division, said Thursday. The assessor’s office will answer questions at 243-6255 or www.asr.co.pima.az.us

PARKER, Calif. – An elderly Oracle woman is dead and her husband severely burned after they wandered from their car in California on a day when temperatures reached 116 degrees.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Tim Smith said the Arizona couple were driving Monday near the California side of the Colorado River when 90-year-old Virgil Sanders stopped the car, got out and walked away. Authorities don’t know why he did so.

Joyce Sanders, 77, began walking in search of her husband, deputies said.

A passer-by found the couple Monday night 50 yards from the car, at the bottom of a hillside.

Joyce Sanders was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities said Wednesday that her husband was hospitalized in extremely critical condition with second- and third-degree burns from the sun and lying on the ground.

An autopsy is scheduled for the woman.

A report from the Arizona Department of Health Services details problems at the Arizona State Veteran Home including a shortage of staff nurses.

“There were very few RNs in the building except in supervisory roles, and that starts to border on potentially not having residents receive the kind of assessment and oversight they need by an RN, especially if they are Medicare patients,” said Sylvia Balistreri, program manager for long-term-care licensing at the health department.

Also, some patients weren’t able to activate call lights, said the report, released Monday.

Family members and some home employees told the health department the call light of a patient had been shut off because the patient used it frequently.

In its own investigation, the veteran home concluded no evidence was found that the call light had been intentionally rigged.

Balistreri said health inspectors felt the home dropped the complaint without a serious investigation.

“It is very serious if a resident does not have a call light,” she said.

Other complaints by residents include a change in policy that kept them from leaving the grounds without an escort.

The report sheds new light on the circumstances surrounding the release of a 67-year-old man, who was diabetic and recovering from brain surgery.

Inspectors said the man was released before a psychological evaluation that had been ordered to determine his competency and that staff members had different opinions about the man’s ability to care for himself. According to the report, the man was confused and often did not know where he was, and staff members felt it would be too dangerous to send him home with the medications he needed.

Pearl Darnell (center), 89, leads an exercise class at the Shadow Mountain Senior Center on Friday in Phoenix. She has been running her own class at the center for 13 years.

PHOENIX – Bolstered by canes, walkers and oxygen tanks, the faithful come each week to gather before Pearl Darnell, their octogenarian Pied Piper of fitness.

They swing their arms. They flex their toes. They try their best to follow Darnell’s every move.

She has been running her own class for the Shadow Mountain Senior Center in northeast Phoenix for about 13 years, ever since the day she walked in and saw only exercise videos to watch. “I can do better than that,” Darnell scoffed. And a leader was born.

Earlene Sharp, who has worked at senior centers in Phoenix for about 20 years, has seen an increase of older people wanting to stay active.

“When I started, no one in their older years like Pearl wanted to be so involved,” Sharp said. “I would not have had any exercise leaders at her age. She’s a phenomenon.”

Kathleen Waldron, interim director of the School of Aging and Lifespan Development at Arizona State University’s West campus, says those further along in life are just one more group trying to stay fit.

“We somewhat expect that Boomers are vigorously exercising, but so are those past their 70s. There is an upsurge.”

Vigorous might not exactly describe the movement in Darnell’s class, but the regulars say their blood gets plenty pumped.

Maybe it’s the names that Darnell attaches to the routines. There’s the Mexican Hat Dance, in which participants sit in a chair and swing their legs side to side. Or maybe it’s the Brazil, arms snaking up toward the ceiling. Those taking the class, mostly women, chuckle at themselves. They roll their eyes – not in exasperation but in line with one of Darnell’s eye-muscle routines.

The 10:30 a.m. class every Friday has been pulling in dozens of regulars for years from across metropolitan Phoenix. For Elsie Leinweber, who celebrated turning an active 84 on Friday in Darnell’s class, the cares of the day lift away after the 30 minutes.

“You wake up feeling stiff when you get older, and you might get tired in her class, but you keep going.”

Darnell, who turns 90 on June 29, has seen too many older seniors waste away.

“Just get going,” she said. “I see them move into my retirement center, and I tell them to come exercise.

“They have their excuses. Like, ‘I have to unpack.’ I tell them, just leave it. You’re going to be here forever. Let’s do something.”

Darnell doesn’t apologize for being a little pushy. “I’m bossy but loving.”

She has tried to remain fit all her life, but a medical scare about 16 years ago strengthened her resolve.

Sudden heart pains hit her.

“I got down on the floor to pray and then had to crawl to the floor to get to the phone,” she said. After two angioplasties, she had a “new lease on life.”

Darnell is thrilled that people still show up for her class.

“Some can’t hear. Some can’t see. They keep me motivated.”

Fresh from one of Darnell’s classes, Sue Beda stood outside and inhaled deeply from her oxygen tank.

“This class has been a lifesaver,” she said. “I had been chair-ridden and couldn’t exercise. It was hard for me to breathe. I had bought so many tapes, and they just went too fast.

“Now, I have stamina. My doctor says I’m building muscle around my lungs. My life is so much better.”