Ever wonder about how social policy - especially healthcare policy- is created? It’s not something that many people consider because social policy just is. However, the story behind healthcare policy, social security, meeting the needs of the older population, feeding the poor – is far more complex and downright complicated than you would ever consider.

Our guest this week is Erin Maruzella and she is neck deep in social policy creation, especially when it comes to healthcare for older Americans. Formulating such policy in the current political climate is an almost Herculian task., as she explains in this week’s episode of The Art 2 Aging.

Regular contributor, Dave McCaughan, joins us this week for his POV on how to keep life interesting during retirement or, really, at any time in our lives.

Dave is a former ad executive with McCann in Australia who has turned his attention to examining and commenting on retirement – something that has led him to very interesting observations about living in our later years.

Every so often, we come across someone who is ripping up the rule book on aging. And we know we have to get them on the show.

Our guest this week is a 70 year old man named Mike Drak. Mike lives just north of Toronto. And he decided a few months ago that he wanted to lose a lot of weight, regain his health and keep it that way.

So, he committed to competing in a full triathlon in early August and began training hard. Here’s his story and it includes some disturbing details about his experience with a popular weight loss drug.