An independent reporter, I work regularly for NBC News and NBCNews.com, where I do both investigations and breaking news. My reporting has also appeared in The Nation, The Daily Beast and Salon.com, among others.
I am a 2013 Dennis A. Hunt Health Journalism Fund Grantee. My work has also been supported by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, the Open Society Foundation, and the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
When I started reporting on Montana's "aging tsunami," I wanted to know what solutions held the most promise. But as I delved into the issues, I was forced to reexamine my assumptions. Sometimes the best stories take a fresh look at what we think we know.
Helping others helps keep Marjorie Haber young. Gray haired and sprightly, the 81 year old has for almost 11 years been a "Senior Companion," ferrying older people in rural Eastern Montana to the grocery store, to the doctor, and to the Senior Center for group lunches.
America's hinterlands have for decades struggled to recruit health providers. But a number of factors make this a turning point. America's rural residents are by the numbers older, in worse health, and poorer than those in urban areas.
Montana policymakers have anxiously watched a demographic shift coming toward them, knowing it brings more older, potentially sicker patients to a largely rural medical system in which providers and specialists are already scarce.
America is aging. Montana is aging faster. Projections indicate 25 percent of the country will be over 65 years old by 2050. Montana is set to hit that mark two decades sooner.
