Aging Demographics

Rebecca Morgan has an interesting post about a series of interactive maps illustrating the demographics of aging in the United States. These may be found on the Governing website. 

I find this kind of stuff fascinating for a whole lot of reasons (the tax implications of the great migration to states lacking personal income tax obligations, for example) but, most especially, because it illustrates that the burden of supporting aging seniors is not evenly distributed between and among the states. In fact, the age demographics of a state like Florida always make me think about the data set I can never seem to find: yes — as the Governing text points out – many northeasterners continue to retire to Florida but a marked number of the truly aged reverse migrate later on to die back at home.  And so, who really bears the services and dual eligible Medicaid burden — those states that host the active elders or those that receive the truly aged back for the most expensive end years when all the truly aged seek is to be close to  family and home?

Now, that's the paper I would like to read.