CHICAGO (Reuters) – While it’s not trending as high on Twitter as #oomf (which stands for “one of my followers”), the hashtag #rothiramovement is hot in the personal finance Twitterverse right now.

Hashtags help Twitter users track a certain topic, and the Roth hashtag is being promoted by more than 140 bloggers. Many more social media users are retweeting, liking on Facebook and otherwise trying to achieve a singular goal: to boost interest in Roth IRAs among young people.

The so-called Roth IRA Movement is the brainchild of Jeff Rose, a financial planner from Carbondale, Illinois, who runs a blog called Good Financial Cents (goodfinancialcents.com) and is a big promoter of Roths.

Unlike a traditional IRA, Roth contributions are made with post-tax dollars; contributions and investment returns come out tax free as long as the account holder is over age 59-1/2 and the account has been established for at least five years. A growing number of employers offer Roths in workplace retirement plans.

The need for Roth education isn’t limited to young investors, though, according to a new survey by T. Rowe Price. The study shows that many investors don’t fully understand the differences between Roths and traditional IRAs. For example, about one-fifth of investors age 21 to 50 mistakenly thought that traditional IRAs let investors withdraw contributions and earnings tax free — which is actually a key feature of the Roth, not the traditional IRA.

Rose was spurred to action after giving a campus lecture on budgeting and investing at his alma mater, Southern Illinois University (SIU), also in Carbondale. He asked for a quick show of hands of everyone in the room who had ever heard of a Roth IRA. No hands went up.

“I wouldn’t necessarily expect college seniors to know much about Roths, but I’ve given a number of talks to high school and university classes, and I usually get at least a few who have heard of Roths,” he says.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Ordinary Americans have a lot at stake this week as the Supreme Court holds hearings on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

It is not clear what the outcome will be, and it is not clear where Americans stand on it. While two-thirds of Americans oppose the individual insurance mandate that is at the heart of the Obama Administration’s healthcare reform law, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, the polls also reveal more nuanced attitudes.

Americans are evenly divided on the overall law, with 47 percent supporting it, according to Pew Research. And a New York Times/CBS News poll finds that many of the law’s key provisions are backed by large majorities: the law’s popular features include the requirement that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions (85 percent), letting children stay on parents’ policies until age 26 (68 percent) and cutting the cost of prescription drugs for seniors (77 percent).

Here’s a breakdown of what is at stake if the Supreme Court strikes down the law:

BENEFITS ALREADY IN PLACE: Although key benefits of the ACA won’t be implemented until 2014, significant changes are already in place. For example, 2.5 million young adults age 19 to 25 are now covered on their parents’ policies. For Medicare, the first steps to close the gap in prescription drug coverage — the notorious “donut hole” — saved $2.1 billion for nearly 3.6 million seniors last year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

STATE EXCHANGES: State insurance exchanges, which are being set up now and will fully launch in 2014, will open up access to insurance for anyone who can’t access group healthcare coverage through the workplace — a crucial, growing problem in an economy characterized by volatility and stubbornly high levels of structural unemployment.

For example, nine million Americans age 50 to 64 were uninsured as of 2010 — up from 5.3 million in 2002, according to The Commonwealth Fund. Too young for Medicare, their only option now is the individual insurance market, where premium prices are high, coverage is partial and many can’t buy policies at all due to pre-existing conditions. Nine million individuals were turned down for coverage in the individual market over the past three years due to pre-existing conditions, Commonwealth says.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Seventy may be the new sixty — but not where the Internal Revenue Service is concerned. People who turned 70-1/2 last year must begin taking required annual withdrawals from their tax-deferred retirement accounts no later than Friday. Yet it seems that some of these seniors didn’t get the memo.

Fidelity Investments reports that nearly half (48 percent) of its IRA customers who hit the magic number in 2011 hadn’t yet taken their first Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) as of late December. That percentage was up slightly from 2010, when 45 percent hadn’t taken RMDs by that time.

RMDs must typically be taken by December 31 each year; except for the year in which you turn 70-1/2, when you have until April 1 of the next year. The effective deadline for 2011 RMD first-timers is coming up fast. Since April 1 falls on a weekend this year, account owners will have to make their annual required withdrawals by March 30th.

Many seniors dislike taking RMDs, since the withdrawals are taxed at ordinary income rates. But failure to comply is even more painful: you’ll face a whopping 50 percent penalty on whatever funds should have been withdrawn in a given year.

“Many of these folks have spent the last 40 years accumulating funds in their IRAs, and never had to start thinking about the distribution phase until now,” says Ken Hevert, vice president of retirement products at Fidelity. “It’s a new mindset and behavior for them.”

The RMD rules apply to traditional IRAs, most 401(k)s and other qualified retirement plans. The rules don’t apply to Roths, which require upfront tax payments. The RMD amounts are based on an IRS formula driven by the account owner’s life expectancy; the RMD is calculated by dividing the year-end account total by the number of years you’re expected to live. (The life expectancy tables used to calculate RMDs can be found in IRS Publication 590 at irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p590.pdf)

Many financial services companies remind customers about RMDs through mailings and online communications, and offer online RMD calculators. Some also will calculate RMDs for customers — but the final responsibility for making the correct RMD payment rests with individuals. Also, IRS form 5498, which is sent to all IRA account holders, indicates if an RMD is due for the coming year (see Box 11 on the form).

By Mark Miller

(Reuters) – The Republican Party doubled down on privatizing Medicare with the 2012 budget plan released yesterday by Republican Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin). It’s their latest pitch for a reform that would let seniors shop for coverage in an insurance exchange marketplace in lieu of traditional Medicare.

The Ryan plan has little chance of passage this year, but the decision by Republicans to stake out a strong position on Medicare privatization in an election year is significant. In their vision, starting in 2023, retirees would be given an allowance by the federal government to purchase medical coverage from a private insurer or traditional fee-for-service Medicare — a so-called “premium support.” Ryan has proposed several versions of this restructuring since late 2010, although the earliest versions didn’t offer traditional Medicare as a choice.

As Medicare is expected to be a primary driver of the federal deficit in the years ahead, Republicans want to cut federal government spending on it by capping outlays. It would be the health care equivalent of defined-contribution retirement plans in which employers set aside a specified amount of money each year for employees.

Republicans assert that costs can be driven down by forcing private insurers to compete against one another for seniors’ business. Expenditures are expected to rise from $585.7 billion this year to $1.03 trillion by 2021, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS), the federal agency that administers the program.

Medicare critics often point to government bureaucracy as a principal cause of exploding cost. Yet half of the projected growth will be driven by rising enrollment as the country ages. So the most important question is how to provide healthcare to seniors with the greatest efficiency.

On that score, Medicare, as it exists now as a government entitlement program, is the clear winner. The program provides healthcare much more efficiently than private sector health plans, mainly due to the power it has to control payments made to providers.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When Harvey and Cora Alter decided to move away from Washington, D.C. for their retirement, friends were surprised to hear where they were going.

The Alters weren’t even crossing a state line. They would move just 30 miles north of Rockville, Maryland, where they had raised two daughters, to Frederick — a town of about 65,000 on the outskirts of the Washington-Baltimore metro area near the Catoctin Mountains.

“People were surprised that we weren’t moving to North Carolina, where one of our daughters lived,” Harvey Alter recalls. “We wanted to be near Washington where all our friends lived, and we saw no point moving near one daughter and bothering her — and not the other in Ohio.”

Relocation in retirement often brings cross-country or big north-south moves to mind, but very few seniors actually go very far. In 2010, just 1.6 percent of retirees between age 55 and 65 moved across state lines, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Richard Johnson, director of retirement policy research at The Urban Institute.

And even among retirees who do move across state lines, migration patterns have shifted in recent years, Johnson says. In 1990, more than one in four retirees between age 55 to 65 who did relocate across a state line moved to Florida. Seven of the top 10 cities for migrating retirees were in the sunshine state. Florida remains the most popular destination, but it only attracted one in seven of retirees between 2005 and 2010.

“Americans are moving to cities all over the country today when they retire,” he says. The most popular destinations now include Atlanta, Las Vegas, Dallas and Phoenix, but New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago also attract many retirees.

The Alters made the move from Rockville to Frederick 14 years ago, when they were in their early 60s. They traded in a single-family home for a townhouse in Worman’s Mill, a planned residential development in Frederick adjacent to the scenic Monacacy River. It’s not an age-restricted retirement community: “We have school buses coming in, and friends in the community almost the same ages as our kids. I don’t want only to be around old grouches like me,” Alter says.

By Mark Miller

(Reuters) – The Great Recession has left millions of midlife Americans up a creek without a paddle. Having lost jobs at the peak of their careers, they must find new work for the second half of their lives. Many will likely need to reinvent their careers — and may consider themselves too old to embark on something new.

Mark Walton begs to disagree.

The former CNN correspondent transformed his own career 20 years ago by becoming a Fortune 100 leadership consultant. Now 61, Walton has spent the past five years studying people who transformed their careers successfully in their 50s or early 60s, and invented new ways of working that extended into their 70s, 80s or even 90s.

A growing body of neuroscience research suggests that old dogs can learn new tricks, and that they can do it better than the young ones.

Walton elaborates on how the scientific research connects with the real life experiences of successful midlife transformations in his new book, “Boundless Potential: Transform Your Brain, Unleash Your Talents, Reinvent Your Work in Midlife and Beyond” (McGraw-Hill).

He concludes that our brains are wired not for retirement, but for constant reinvention. And that seniors can tap extraordinary creative and intellectual powers in the second half of life — if they put in the required work.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When Harvey and Cora Alter decided to move away from Washington, D.C. for their retirement, friends were surprised to hear where they were going.

The Alters weren’t even crossing a state line. They would move just 30 miles (50 km) north of Rockville, Maryland, where they had raised two daughters, to Frederick — a town of about 65,000 on the outskirts of the Washington-Baltimore metro area near the Catoctin Mountains.

“People were surprised that we weren’t moving to North Carolina, where one of our daughters lived,” Harvey Alter recalls. “We wanted to be near Washington where all our friends lived, and we saw no point moving near one daughter and bothering her — and not the other in Ohio.”

Relocation in retirement often brings cross-country or big north-south moves to mind, but very few seniors actually go very far. In 2010, just 1.6 percent of retirees between age 55 and 65 moved across state lines, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Richard Johnson, director of retirement policy research at The Urban Institute.

And even among retirees who do move across state lines, migration patterns have shifted in recent years, Johnson says. In 1990, more than one in four retirees between age 55 to 65 who did relocate across a state line moved to Florida. Seven of the top 10 cities for migrating retirees were in the sunshine state. Florida remains the most popular destination, but it only attracted one in seven of retirees between 2005 and 2010.

“Americans are moving to cities all over the country today when they retire,” he says. The most popular destinations now include Atlanta, Las Vegas, Dallas and Phoenix, but New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago also attract many retirees.

The Alters made the move from Rockville to Frederick 14 years ago, when they were in their early 60s. They traded in a single-family home for a townhouse in Worman’s Mill, a planned residential development in Frederick adjacent to the scenic Monacacy River. It’s not an age-restricted retirement community: “We have school buses coming in, and friends in the community almost the same ages as our kids. I don’t want only to be around old grouches like me,” Alter says.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When Harvey and Cora Alter decided to move away from Washington, D.C., for their retirement, friends were surprised to hear where they were going.

The Alters weren’t even crossing a state line. They would move just 30 miles north of Rockville, Maryland, where they had raised two daughters, to Frederick — a town of about 65,000 on the outskirts of the Washington-Baltimore metro area near the Catoctin Mountains.

“People were surprised that we weren’t moving to North Carolina, where one of our daughters lived,” Harvey Alter recalls. “We wanted to be near Washington where all our friends lived, and we saw no point moving near one daughter and bothering her — and not the other in Ohio.”

Relocation in retirement often brings cross-country or big north-south moves to mind, but very few seniors actually go very far. In 2010, just 1.6 percent of retirees between age 55 and 65 moved across state lines, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Richard Johnson, director of retirement policy research at The Urban Institute.

And even among retirees who do move across state lines, migration patterns have shifted in recent years, Johnson says. In 1990, more than one in four retirees between age 55 to 65 who did relocate across a state line moved to Florida — and seven of the top cities for migrating retirees were in the sunshine state. Florida remains the most popular destination, but it only attracted one in seven of retirees between 2005 and 2010.

“Americans are moving to cities all over the country today when they retire,” he says. The most popular destinations now include Atlanta, Las Vegas, Dallas and Phoenix, but New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago also attract many retirees.

The Alters made the move from Rockville to Frederick 14 years ago, when they were in their early 60s. They traded in a single-family home for a townhouse in Worman’s Mill, a planned residential development in Frederick adjacent to the scenic Monacacy River. It’s not an age-restricted retirement community: “We have school buses coming in, and friends in the community almost the same ages as our kids. I don’t want only to be around old grouches like me,” Alter says.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When Harvey and Cora Alter decided to move away from Washington, D.C., for their retirement, friends were surprised to hear where they were going.

The Alters weren’t even crossing a state line. They would move just 30 miles north of Rockville, Maryland, where they had raised two daughters, to Frederick — a town of about 65,000 on the outskirts of the Washington-Baltimore metro area near the Catoctin Mountains.

“People were surprised that we weren’t moving to North Carolina, where one of our daughters lived,” Harvey Alter recalls. “We wanted to be near Washington where all our friends lived, and we saw no point moving near one daughter and bothering her — and not the other in Ohio.”

Relocation in retirement often brings cross-country or big north-south moves to mind, but very few seniors actually go very far. In 2010, just 1.6 percent of retirees between age 55 and 65 moved across state lines, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Richard Johnson, director of retirement policy research at The Urban Institute.

And even among retirees who do move across state lines, migration patterns have shifted in recent years, Johnson says. In 1990, more than one in four retirees between age 55 to 65 who did relocate across a state line moved to Florida — and seven of the top cities for migrating retirees were in the sunshine state. Florida remains the most popular destination, but it only attracted one in seven of retirees between 2005 and 2010.

“Americans are moving to cities all over the country today when they retire,” he says. The most popular destinations now include Atlanta, Las Vegas, Dallas and Phoenix, but New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago also attract many retirees.

The Alters made the move from Rockville to Frederick 14 years ago, when they were in their early 60s. They traded in a single-family home for a townhouse in Worman’s Mill, a planned residential development in Frederick adjacent to the scenic Monacacy River. It’s not an age-restricted retirement community: “We have school buses coming in, and friends in the community almost the same ages as our kids. I don’t want only to be around old grouches like me,” Alter says.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When Harvey and Cora Alter decided to move away from Washington, D.C., for their retirement, friends were surprised to hear where they were going.

The Alters weren’t even crossing a state line. They would move just 30 miles north of Rockville, Maryland, where they had raised two daughters, to Frederick — a town of about 65,000 on the outskirts of the Washington-Baltimore metro area near the Catoctin Mountains.

“People were surprised that we weren’t moving to North Carolina, where one of our daughters lived,” Harvey Alter recalls. “We wanted to be near Washington where all our friends lived, and we saw no point moving near one daughter and bothering her — and not the other in Ohio.”

Relocation in retirement often brings cross-country or big north-south moves to mind, but very few seniors actually go very far. In 2010, just 1.6 percent of retirees between age 55 and 65 moved across state lines, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Richard Johnson, director of retirement policy research at The Urban Institute.

And even among retirees who do move across state lines, migration patterns have shifted in recent years, Johnson says. In 1990, more than one in four retirees between age 55 to 65 who did relocate across a state line moved to Florida — and seven of the top cities for migrating retirees were in the sunshine state. Florida remains the most popular destination, but it only attracted one in seven of retirees between 2005 and 2010.

“Americans are moving to cities all over the country today when they retire,” he says. The most popular destinations now include Atlanta, Las Vegas, Dallas and Phoenix, but New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago also attract many retirees.

The Alters made the move from Rockville to Frederick 14 years ago, when they were in their early 60s. They traded in a single-family home for a townhouse in Worman’s Mill, a planned residential development in Frederick adjacent to the scenic Monacacy River. It’s not an age-restricted retirement community: “We have school buses coming in, and friends in the community almost the same ages as our kids. I don’t want only to be around old grouches like me,” Alter says.