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By Claire Laganne This internship is a great opportunity to learn more about the involvement of an NGO in today's world and to understand the relation between the non-governmental organizations and the United Nations. Living and working in an English speaking country is also a means to improve my English. Last but not least, I wanted to know more about the working world in the At Global Action on Aging we provide information about older persons worldwide via our Web site. The Web site focuses on emerging issues and events in the In fact, even though our website is largely in English, we also have a Russian, a Chinese and a French section. These sections allow us to post articles about events in these countries, but also see how those countries consider the aging developments in the I'm mostly in charge of the Health section of the web site. During the week I look for articles in newspapers like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal. I also use French or British newspapers. I have to make summaries about the articles I find. That's a kind of a press information work. It's really interesting since I keep in touch with many of the reforms or discoveries regarding health issues. I have worked a lot on describing the changes in the Medicare law and I learned a great deal about the topic. As you may know, the Medicare program was created in 1965. This federal program provides health insurance to people over 65 as well as for disabled people. It's a major source of protection and security for Originally, the Medicare program was divided in two parts: part A and part B. The part A was a hospital insurance program, with payroll taxes. The part B is a medical insurance program, funded by monthly beneficiary premiums and federal general revenues. The Medicare reform, passed in December 2003, made harmful changes in this program, since it increases the power of private insurance firms and permits "skimming" for the healthiest seniors in Health Management Organizations. It also subsidizes the cost of prescription drugs for seniors-with no control over how much the drug company can charge. Both of these "reforms" threaten the integrity of the Medicare Program and risk killing it as a public program. First, the law makes severe restrictions for the access to prescription drugs. In fact it gives to private insurers the authority to limit the access to drugs whose reimbursement is covered by Medicare. Each insurer can decide which type of drugs will be covered and how high the beneficiary will have to pay for each drug, meaning the creation of reimbursement formulary. Afterwards, it will be difficult or even impossible for patients to get drugs that are not included in their formulary. Second, the reform prevents people from choosing their drug insurance, since they have to pick one but they don't know exactly which drugs this insurer covers. And insurers are free to change their formula whenever they want to. To switch for another insurer is difficult, long and expensive. Some people that already have a good health insurance may have to change since the rules won't let them stay with their current insurance any longer. Third, the law prevents people from importing cheaper drugs from The Food and Drugs Administration argued the importations were not safe. In reality it seems like My knowledge about the reform here helps me to compare with reforms going on in I have also learnt about the medical discoveries regarding Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's or cancer. Many researches are done on these topics in order to find a real and definitive cure. The Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative disease that affect the brain but also the body. 4 million people in the Moreover to take care of Alzheimer's disease victim is a big issue for family. They have to overcome the pain to see somebody they love change due to illness. And then the family must find the time and the money to take care of the person. The relatives have to be patient with the ill person and support him/her in this fight against the disease. With Magali, the other intern, we are both in charge of the Elder Rights section. Most of the time we look for positive stories regarding old people. I found some regarding old people facing the aging process with strength and happiness. They find new hobbies, create new opportunities. Some even take courses at the university, or find time to improve their passion in some issues. Many of them stay with their relatives and enjoy time with their family, children, grand children and even great grand children. On the Web site last week, I put up the wonderful story of a Kenyan citizen, Mr. Maruge, 84 years old. He is a grand father but also a model student. Since he never had the chance to go to school when he was young, he decided to seize the opportunity now that At the end of each week I put the articles and the summaries on the Web site. This means doing the Front page, the main page of the Web site, with the most important articles of the week. Then, we create the What's new, an index with the new articles of the week and the index in each sections of the Web site. (Health, Pension, Elder Rights and Rural Aging) I am also in charge of the List Serve, the newsletter we send every week to our subscribers. Last week we reached our record with 1004 subscribers to our listserv. That's a way to keep people informed about the big issues facing older people everywhere. As you know, GAA is affiliated to the United Nations and holds a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council. Thanks to that status we are allowed to attend meetings at the UN. We had the opportunity to observe several important commissions during the year: the Commission for Social Development, the Commission on the Status of Women, and the Commission for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. All these conferences were interesting and helped me understand how the UN works, how NGO's can make themselves heard.
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