Gathers together the essays on the intersection of law and issues affecting older Americans. This title covers the nature of elder law, social attitudes toward the elderly, aging and ethnicity, and generational justice. It also includes sections on work, income, wealth; housing, mental capacity, health-care decision making; and more.

The essays have been edited to make them easily accessible to students and the general reader, and Professor Frolik has supplied introductions to the sections, as well as summaries of issues for which essays could not be included. Both comprehensive and engaging, "Aging and the Law" brings together essays by lawyers, social workers, health-care professionals, and policy-makers, as well as selected case law and congressional hearings: Lawrence A. Frolik is Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Preface
List of Contributors
Part I: Introduction
1. WHAT IS ELDERLAW?
The Developing Field of Elder Law: A Historical Perspective
Lawrence A. Frolik
2. WHY TREAT OLDER PERSONS AS A SEPARATE CATEGORY?
An Aging Population: A Challenge to the Law
Lawrence A. Frolik and Alison P. Barnes
America the Aging: Changing Demographics Pose Dramatic New Challenges for Our Country and the Courts
Alison P. Barnes and Lawrence A. Frolik
3. SOCIAL ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ELDERLY
Ageism: Paternalism and Prejudice
Linda S. Whitton
4. WHO IS OLD?
An Aging Population: A Challenge to the Law
Lawrence A. Frolik and Alison Barnes
5. AGING AND ETHNICITY
Gender and Family Issues in Minority Groups
Barbara W. K. Yee
6. GENERATIONAL JUSTICE
Income of the Elderly and Nonelderly, 1967-92
Daniel B. Radner
Justice Across the Generations
Richard A. Epstein
Part II: Work, Income and Wealth
7. RETIREMENT
8. AGE DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT
Note: A Rose by Any Other Name No Longer Smells as Sweet: Disparate Treatment Discrimination and the Age Proxy Doctrine After Hazen Paper Co.v. Biggins

Toni J. Querry
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
George J. Tichy, II
Hands-Tying and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
Christine Jolls
Age-Based Exit Incentives, Coercion, and the Prospective Waiver of ADEA Rights: The Failure of the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act
Michael C.Harper
9. PENSIONS
The Role of Pensions in Retirement Income: Trends and Questions
Virginia P.Reno
Special Tax Treatment for Employer-Based Retirement Programs: Is It "Still" Viable as a Means of Increasing Retirement Income? Should It Continue?
Daniel I. Halperin
10. SOC IAL SECURITY
Social Security Bulletin 1991
Protecting Social Security and Medicare
William G. Dauster
Social Security and Older Workers
Michael V. Leonesio
Social Security Discrimination Against African Americans: An Equal Protection Argument
Geoffrey T. Holtz
A Guide to Social Security Money's Worth Issues
Dean R. Leimer
11. SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM
Top Ten Myths of Social Security
Richard L. Kaplan
Advisory Council on Social Security Report
Social Security: Prospects and Proposals for Privatization
Merton C. Bernstein
Changing Social Security Benefits to Reflect Child-Care Years: A Policy Proposal Whose Time Has Passed?
Howard M. Iams and Steven H. Sandell
Tax Policy and Feminism: Competing Goals and Institutional Choices
Anne Alstott
Part III: Housing
HOUSING NEEDS
The Special Housing Needs of Older Persons: An Essay
Lawrence A. Frolik
13. APPROPRIATE HOUSING
Beyond the Beltway: Housing for Older Persons Act of 1995
Andrea D. Panjwani ,
14. CONTINUING CARE COMMUNITIES
The Continuing Care Community: Will It Meet Your Client's Changing Needs? Christine A. Semanson
15. BOARD AND CARE HOMES
U.S. Senate, Special Committee on Aging and Select Committee on Aging, U.S. House of Representatives (1989)
Joint Hearing
Board and Care: A Failure in Public Policy
16. ASSISTED LIVING
Assisted Living for Low-Income Seniors
David Abromowitz and Rebecca Plaut
Part IV: Mental Capacity Issues
17. EVALUATING MENTAL CAPACITY
Determining Decisional Capacity: A Medical Perspective
Robert P.Roca
Assessing Decision-Making Capacity
Bernard Lo
18. LEGAL STANDARDS OF MENTAL INCAPACITY
Florida Guardianship and the Elderly: The Paradoxical Right to Unwanted Assistance
Alison P. Barnes
19. GUARDIANSHIP PROCEDURES
A Social Science Perspective on the Law of Guardianship: Directions for Improving the Process and Practice
Phillip B. Tor and Bruce D. Sales
The National Probate Court Standards: The Role of the Courts in Guardianship and Conservatorship Proceedings
Paula L. Hannaford and Thomas L. Hafemeister
20. GUARDIANSHIPREFORM
Preserving Dignity and Self-Determination of the Elderly in the Face of Competing Interests and Grim Alternatives: A Proposal for Statutory Refocus and Reform
Jan Ellen Rein
Plenary Guardianship: An Analysis, a Critique and a Proposal for Reform
Lawrence A. Frolik
Losing It in California: Conservatorship and the Social Organization of Aging
Lawrence M. Friedman and June O. Starr
21. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND FAMILIES
Who's the Parent Here? The Family's Impact on the Autonomy of Older Persons
Marshall B.Kapp
When Parents Die: A Response to Before Guardianship: Abuse of Patient Rights Behind Closed Doors
Sidney D. Watson
22. ALTERNATIVES TO GUARDIANSHIP
Planning Tools Available to the Elderly Client
Ramona C. Rains
Part V: Health Care Decision Making
23. THE DOCTRINE OF INFORMED CONSENT
Autonomy, Competence, and Informed Consent in Long-Term Care: Legal and Psychological Perspectives
William M. Altman, Patricia A. Parmelee, and Michael A. Smyer
Factoring Ethnic and Racial Differences into Bioethics Decision Making
Vicki Michel
A Controlled Trial to Improve Care for Seriously Ill Hospitalized Patients: The Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatment (SUPPORT) and The SUPPORT Principal Investigators
24. THE RIGHT TO DIE OF COMPETENT OLDER ADULTS
Pocono Medical Center v. Harley, 11 Fiduc. Rptr. 2d 128 (1990) (Penna. Monroe County)
25. COMPETENT OLDER ADULTS
Nursing Home Residents' Preferences for Life-Sustaining Treatments
Linda O'Brien, Jeane Ann Grisso, Greg Maislin, Karin LaPann, Karol P. Krotki, Peter J. Greco, Elisabeth A. Siegert, Lois K. Evans
26. STRUCTURAL RESPONSES TO COMPETENCY AND INFORMED CONSENT
CONTROVERSIES
"Fitting the Forum to the Fuss" in Acute and Long-Term Care
Facilities
Erica Woodand Naomi Karp
27. MENTALLY INCAPACITATED OLDER PATIENTS
A. What is Mental Capacity?
Determining Patient Competency in Treatment Refusal Cases
Kevin R. Wolff
In re Milton 505 N.E. 2d 255 (Supreme Court of Ohio 1987)
B. Proxy Decision Making
Privacy and Personhood Revisited: A New Framework for Substitute Decision-making for the Incompetent, Incurably Ill Adult
Linda C.Fentiman
In re Daniel Joseph Fiori, an adjudged incompetent 673 A.2d 904 (Pa. 1996)
C. Legislative Responses
Uniform Health Care Decisions Act Gives New Guidance
David M. English and Alan Meisel
28. ASSISTED SUICIDE
Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the United States: Legal and Ethical Observations
T. Howard Stone and William J. Winslade
The Justification of Physician-Assisted Deaths
Tom L. Beauchamp
Against Assisted Suicide Even a Very Limited Form
Yale Kamisar
Just Caring: Assisted Suicide and Health Care Rationing
Leonard M. Fleck
Old Folks on the Slippery Slope: Elderly Patients and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Marshall B. Kapp
Part VI: Long-Term Care
29. HOME HEALTH CARE
A. What Is Home Health Care?
The Policy and Politics of Community-Based Long-Term Care
Alison Barnes
Community Care for the Frail Elderly: A Theory of Empowerment
Joel F. Handler
B. Paying for Home Health Care Programs
Home Health Care: What It Is and Who Pays for It?
Meris L. Bergquist
Expanding Autonomy of the Elderly in Home Health Care Programs
Peter J. Ferrara
C. Regulation of Home Health Care
GAO Report: "Long-Term Care: Some States Apply Criminal Background Checks to Home Care Workers"
30. BOARD AND CARE HOMES
Board and Care: A Failure in Public Policy
A staff briefing paper prepared for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging
31. NURSING HOMES
A. Profile of Residents
Family Structure and the Risk of Nursing Home Admission
Vicki A. Freedman
B. Mechanisms for Monitoring Care
"Fitting the Forum to the Fuss" in Acute and Long-Term Care Facilities
Erica Wood and Naomi Karp
Protecting the Rights of Nursing Home Residents: How Tort Liability Interacts with Statutory Protections
Jeffrey Spitzer-Resnick and Maya Krajcinovic
32. FINANCING LONG-TERM CARE
Illegal Guarantees in Nursing Homes: A Nursing Facility Cannot Force a Resident's Family Members and Friends to Become Financially Responsible for Nursing Facility Expenses
Eric Carlson
Contracts to Devise or Gift Property in Exchange for Lifetime Home Care-Latent and Insidious Abuse of Older Persons
Clifton B. Kruse, Jr.
Part VII: Health Care Finance
33. MEDICARE
A. Introduction
Tax Plans for the Twenty-First Century: Medical Incentive Vouchers Address the Needs of Academic Health Centers and the Elderly
Nina J. Crimm
B. History of Medicare
Medicare Managed Care From the Beneficiary's Perspective
Eleanor D. Kinney
The Right to Health Care, the Social Contract, and Health Reform in the United States
Christine Cassel
C. Medicare and Health Maintenance Organizations
34. MEDICARE REFORM
The Tough Choices Commission
Anne E. Berdahl
"Budgetized" Health Entitlements and the Fiscal Constitution in Congress's 1995-1996 Budget Battle
Charles Tiefer
Protecting Social Security and Medicare
William G. Dauster
35. RATIONING OF HEALTH CARE
Older Americans and the Rationing of Health Care
Andrew H. Smith and John Rother
36. MEDICAID
Medicaid Reform: Saving an American Success Story
The Honorable Bob Graham
37. MEDICAID REFORM
Testimony, March 11, 1997
Bob Miller and Michael O. Leavitt
Misinformation and Self-Deception in Recent Long-Term Care Policy Trends
Jan Ellen Rein
38. FILIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR IMPOVERISHED PARENTS
Americana Healthcare Center v. Randall: The Renaissance of Filial Responsibility
Robin M. Jacobson
Savoy v. Savoy, 433 Pa. Super. 549, 641 A.2d 596 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania 1994)
Part VIII: Family and Social Issues
39. MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
40. SPIRITUAL ISSUES
Spirituality and Aging Well
Dan Blazer
The Role of Church and Family Support in the Lives of Older African Americans: A New Look at Families and Aging, and Black Churches as Support Systems
Carla T. Walls
Spiritual Care for the Elderly: An Integral Part of the Nursing Process
Ranjana Sardana
41. SOCIAL PROBLEMS
A. Alcohol
B. Suicide
C. Loneliness
The Relationship of Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Health to Dietary Adequacy of Independently Living Elderly
Dellmar Walker and Roy E. Beauchene
D. Mental Illness
Hearing, Senate Special Committee on Aging-1996
Part IX: Abuse, Neglect, Victimization, and Elderly Criminals
42. ABUSE AND NEGLECT OF OLDER PERSONS
A. Definitions and Causes
Elder Abuse
Sandra Baron and Adele Welty
Elder Abuse and Guardians of Elderly Incompetents
Lawrence A. Frolik
Elder Mistreatment: A Multidimensional Problem
Christine S. Sellers, W. Edward Folts, and Katherine M. Logan
B. Financial Exploitation
Contracts to Devise or Gift Property in Exchange for Lifetime Home Care Latent and Insidious Abuse of Older Persons
Clifton B. Kruse, Jr.
43. ABUSE AND NEGLECT IN INSTITUTIONS
Covert Elder Abuse in the Nursing Home
Dorothy I. Meddaugh
44. SENTENCING OF ELDERLY CRIMINALS
The Sentencing of Elderly Criminals
Molly F.James
The Incarceration of Older Criminals: Balancing Safety, Cost, and Humanitarian Concerns
William E. Adams, Jr.
Golden Years Behind Bars: Special Programs and Facilities for Elderly Inmates
Ronald H. Aday
Part X: Legal Representation and Ethical Considerations
45. INTRODUCTION
Ethical Considerations in Representing the Elderly
Mark Falk
46. REPRESENTING THE INCAPACITATED CLIENT
Representing the Elderly Client and Addressing the Question of Competence
Linda F. Smith
Access, Connection, and Voice: A Contextual Approach to Representing Senior Citizens of Questionable Capacity
Peter Margulies
Representing Defendants in Guardianship Proceedings: The Attorney's Dilemma of Conflicting Responsibilities
Anne K. Pecora
47. ETHICAL CONFLICTS
The Ethical Management of Assets for Elder Clients: A Context, Role, and Law Approach
Steven H. Hobbs and Fay Wilson Hobbs
About the Contributors
Index