ShAARP Session: Observations from AARP

We're on the final day of our Vegas Life @ 50+ AARP Member event, and all we have to say is - Vegas, baby! What a ride. Watch:

30,000 AARP members in one place... booths everywhere... giveaways, discounts and Elvis glasses?

How could we resist a picture?

AARP member Virginia Breaux says "Thursday" instead of "Cheese!" when her picture's being taken. Classy!

My Generation reports on a once-a-year clinic the Remote Area Medical team set up in Wise, VA for the uninsured.
"The situation in the United States is requiring us to concentrate our efforts here in America," founder Stan Brock says.
Watch here.

Here's Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius on the subject of Medicare fraud, which is driving up the cost of care for everyone.

Check it out:

You may have heard the term "public option" tossed around lately in the same breath as "health care reform.

If you're confused about what that means, be sure to check out and forward this valuable explanation from Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House Office of Health Reform, who appeared on AARP's Prime Time Radio this week.

We had Kathleen Sebelius on our legislative issues show "Inside E Street" today; host Sheilah Kast asked her about widespread Medicare fraud. Sebelius reminded us that many fraud issues are exposed by Medicare beneficiaries themselves - that means you.

If your provider says anything along these lines, you'll want to be wary:

1) The test is free; he only needs your Medicare number for his records. NOTE: For clinical laboratory tests, there is no co-payment and a provider may in good faith state that the test is free, since there is no cost to the person with Medicare.

2) Medicare wants you to have the item or service.

3) They know how to get Medicare to pay for it.

4) The more tests they provide the cheaper they are.

5) The equipment or service is free; it won't cost you anything.

6) Offer you payments or gifts to go to clinics or offices.

Bookmark this page - there's more tips as well as information on who to contact if you think fraud may have occurred.

John Rother continues his YouTube explanations of healthcare reform in this video. If you're confused at all about how it could benefit you, this might just help.

It's about you.

AARP's John Rother takes to YouTube to explain why AARP cares about reforming health care.

Watch:

These days, everyone's talking about how to save money. But living simpler isn't just good for your wallet - it's good for the environment, too. You might not get your "flowers" at the dollar store like this guy, but we can all agree a little composting helps the landfills and the bank account.

Watch below:

Not sure about Twitter? Want to join Facebook?

We did a live webcast with Deanna Zandt earlier today and brought in our Twitter followers for questions.

Now the whole thing's available online. Watch below, and follow our Twitter feed to find out about more live broadcasts in the future!

In a few hours, we're doing something new.

We're bringing Deanna Zandt into the studio to talk about Twitter and other social networking tools. (Check out our guide here.)

Are you curious about Facebook but haven't quite signed up? Do you have any idea what Twitter is? Think Twitter isn't useful?

Make sure and send us your questions and comments. If you've got Twitter, you can just include @aarplive in your tweets. If not, you can just find us at our streaming location and add your comments in the "chat" box. Or comment below!

Some daring folks trying to change the urban landscape - watch it on AARP TV:

This afternoon, President Obama nominated Dr. Francis Collins to lead the National Institute of Health. You might know him from directing the ground-breaking Human Genome Project, or as a recipient of AARP's Andrus Award honoring positive social change.

Be sure to check out AARP Bulletin's fascinating interview with this "guitar-playing, motorcycle-riding geneticist"... and his interview on finding new cures on AARP TV's My Generation. We also sat down with Collins two years ago for Prime Time Radio, talking about the implications of genetic prediction of our future diseases.

He's the familiar figure behind the Mary Tyler Moore Show's Lou Grant, and has appeared in hundreds of other television shows and movies. AARP's My Generation sat down with Asner to talk about his long career. "I'm still a child," he says.

Watch:

We cornered our new to-be CEO yesterday in the AARP radio studios for an interview. Why did he take the job? Watch below.

After signing the federal stimulus bill into law last week, the White House has convened a Fiscal Responsibility Summit. AARP's CEO Bill Novelli is attending to represent AARP's 40 million members. Here's what he had to say about today's importance:

AARP TV sat down with Harold J. Creel, Jr., whose old dog, Chester, inspired a book of poetry.

(This segment is from the AARP-produced show My Generation. Check out more here.)

Whether you've had a digital camera for years or just got one for Christmas, chances are you have more than a few digital photos stored up of your family, friends, and pets. Unless you've got one of the cameras that prints its own photos, chances are you're just keeping those photos on your computer's hard drive. But what if there's a fire? Or a flood?

A new company at the Consumer Electronics Show this year was showing off a hard drive that can make it through a fire, be thrown in a swimming pool, and still come out with all its data intact. They even put it through a fire to show us:

If you don't want to go through all the hassle of manually moving those important photos of Grandma and Grandpa over to a backup drive, another company is making a new cable that automatically backs up anything important on your computer. All you need is one cable and an external drive - or just an Internet connection - and their software does the rest. Easy, right?

And don't forget - if you're ever unsure about how to keep your photos secure when you share them online, this video from AARP member Karen Ryan is a great resource.

Remember Polaroid? Big, brick-sized cameras, and you could take a picture of your cat and five minutes later it'd be a beautiful printed picture?

I ran into Polaroid at the Consumer Electronics Show, and they're making some new cameras that print pictures without even using ink. Remember how the old Polaroid prints had to sit out on your counter and dry for a painful, long 2 minutes? Not anymore. This is a picture I printed of myself at the show:

They weren't the only ones - there's a Japanese company that makes a similar camera in all sorts of different colors. Check them out here.

In case you haven't noticed all the advertisements, February 17, 2009 is still the date when you can't get those analog signals anymore.

Lately, though, we're hearing calls for a delay after the coupons for digital converter boxes ran out - even from President-Elect Obama's transition team. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, however, the commissioner of the FCC seemed strongly against it - saying it would be a bad idea to confuse everyone by changing the date.

Stay tuned.

I'm at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, where thousands of companies are showing off their inventions aimed at making your lives easier. My favorites so far: little gizmos that let you charge your phone, your iPod, or even power motion-detected lights on your garage, without ever needing to find a plug.

The nPower PEG (Personal Energy Generator) feels like a really light barbell. Stick it in your backpack or a really, really big pocket, and you can charge that cellphone or your little digital camera while you hike in the Rockies.

Or there's these little gizmos from the UK- little cases made for iPhones and Blackberries. All you need is a light source, and your phone's got power to go.