Identification & Tracking Legislation in Congress

This blog is tracking legislation in the areas of:

Aging
Disability Assistance
Medicare
Medicaid
Social Security and Elderly Assistance

The tracking of introduced bills and their status is provided via GovTrack.us and may be found in the right sidebar and at the bottom of the page. Clicking on the bill title will connect to GovTrack's information on the bill including bill summary, complete bill language, co-sponsors and the current status of the bill in the legislative process.

There are no individual posts on specific bills in posts section.

Leadership Council of Aging Organizations Consensus Statement on Older Americans Act Reauthorization

Introduction by LCOA on its consensus recommendations:

The Older Americans Act (OAA) is the major federal discretionary funding source for home and community-based services for older adults. Programs supported through the OAA include home-delivered and congregate nutrition services, in-home supportive services, transportation, caregiver support, community service employment, the long-term care ombudsman program, services to prevent the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of older persons, and other supportive services. These programs provide vital support for those older adults who are at significant risk of losing their ability to remain in their own homes and communities, or who need support and protection in long-term care facilities.

In addition, OAA funds resource centers that support the work of the aging services network, these resource centers address a variety of needs, including access to benefits, elder justice, multigenerational service and volunteering, legal services, financial literacy, long-term care ombudsman training, and targeted services to minority and special populations in need.

To develop and implement the wide array of OAA services, a system of federal, state and local agencies and organizations, known as the Aging Network, was established. The core of the Aging Network is the U.S. Administration on Aging (AoA), 56 State and Territorial Agencies on Aging (SUAs), 629 Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs), 246 Title VI Native American and Native Hawaiian aging programs, and more than 30,000 community-based service provider organizations. This critical aging infrastructure is the backbone of our nation’s home and community-based long-term services and supports system offering assistance to older adults. The Aging Network’s activities also benefit other populations such as people with disabilities and caregivers.

Supported by the OAA, the Aging Network has successfully served millions of older adults in the community and in long-term care facilities since 1965, and is positioned to assist the country’s growing aging population to remain healthy, active, and in their communities. With each reauthorization, the OAA has been adapted to meet the changing needs of this growing population, the changing role of family supports, and expanding research and technological advances, often with inadequate funding. Further, the Aging Network and its services have the potential to save the Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans Administration programs billions of dollars each year by enabling older adults to stay in their homes and communities and out of hospitals and long-term care facilities.

This current reauthorization provides an opportunity to reassess the successes and shortcomings of the OAA’s ability to serve older Americans, particularly those with the greatest social and economic need. In these times of fiscal restraint, the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations (LCAO) offers in this document recommendations for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the OAA in its delivery of core services and how it interacts and coordinates with other federal programs that serve older adults.

In order to maximize effectiveness, community-based services provided through the Aging Network must be coordinated and integrated with the various federal health care services that older adults receive. In addition, they must work hand in glove with other programs at the state and federal levels such as the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), fraud prevention programs, Senior Corps and other programs promoting community service, transportation programs, the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP), the Adult Protective Services Program and other elder abuse-related programs.

The goal of the following LCAO recommendations is to authorize the AoA, the Assistant Secretary, and the programs and staff across the nation to fulfill their promise by giving them the tools, direction and flexibility to provide the services that the aging population of our nation demands. Our focus is on person and family-centered care with local flexibility to serve the needs of unique communities and sub-populations. LCAO’s recommended improvements do not require major changes to the OAA’s core services or eligibility requirements. LCAO strongly believes that increasing the authorized funding for all titles of the OAA is necessary; however, provision of adequate funding is just one of the ways that we propose to improve and expand services. Additionally, any new programs added to OAA should be given specific authorization levels.

With the population of older individuals expected to grow exponentially in the coming years, the aging network faces incredible challenges associated with the influx of older individuals into OAA programs. The LCAO, which has played a significant leadership role in past reauthorizations, is committed to a reauthorization that will strengthen the OAA for both the older adults currently receiving services and for the boomers who, in 2011, have begun turning 65 years of age.

We urge Congress to update and improve the Older Americans Act, while providing the funding needed for OAA programs to keep older Americans independent and productive, thereby saving federal and state government resources. Therefore, the LCAO makes the following recommendations to strengthen and enhance the OAA.

Full Document

HR 397 Reform Americans Can Afford Act of 2011

 To repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 and to take meaningful steps to lower health care costs and increase access to health insurance coverage without raising taxes, cutting Medicare benefits for seniors, adding to the national deficit, intervening in the doctor-patient relationship, or instituting a government takeover of health care.

Sponsor: Rep. Walter Herger [R-CA2] 13 Cosponsors

Full Text

Status:

Occurred: Introduced Jan 24, 2011
Occurred: Referred to Committee View Committee Assignments
Not Yet Occurred: Reported by Committee ...
Not Yet Occurred: House Vote ...
Not Yet Occurred: Senate Vote ...
Not Yet Occurred: Signed by President ...

This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Introduced bills and resolutions first go to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise them before they go to general debate. The majority of bills and resolutions never make it out of committee. [Last Updated: Jan 27, 2011 6:21AM]

In China, a Move to Mandate Closer Families - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia
by Sharon LaFraniere

Under a proposal submitted last Monday by the Civil Affairs Ministry to China’s State Council, adult children would be required by law to regularly visit their elderly parents. If they do not, parents can sue them.
Full Article

Older Americans and People with Disabilities - Bridging the Disconnect. Information Bulletin # 320 (8/2010)

by Steve Gold

This Information Bulletin is an attempt to bridge and solidify advocates from two communities - older Americans and people with disabilities.  For many reasons, there has been a disconnect between them.

More than two years ago, we wrote "The Older Americans Act: Consumer Choice and Control over Long Term Care," (see February 9, 2007 Information Bulletin).  We reviewed how Congress' amendments to the Older Americans Act and its "Choices for Independence" began to provide services for people to remain in their homes, instead of going into nursing homes.  The Older Americans Act was for the first time really focused on community!

The OAA provided grants for States to develop a "single point of entry" for long-term care, so people would know what community-based services were available in order to avoid institutionalization.  This single point was through the "Aging and Disability Resource Centers" (ADRC).  It also adopted the "consumer model" so people could self-direct care and services.

The Older Americans Act is up for reauthorization in 2011. Yes folks, Congress will have to face whether or not the "Aging and Disability" centers will be refunded. This reauthorization will provide a forum and opportunity for these two communities to discuss how well they have worked together, how well the ADRCs are functioning, if they are serving both older Americans with disabilities and younger Americans with disabilities and what changes should occur.

There are a number of issues which we hope both communities understand and address:

1. Medicaid is the same funding stream for long-term community care and nursing homes for all people with disabilities, regardless of age.Cut-backs and reductions of Medicaid services impact every disabled person, and State legislatures' common attacks on services will hurt; people regardless of age.

2.Yes, these two communities do not agree on everything (e.g., assisted living, identifying oneself as having a disability), but there are unequivocally common interests. In an era of reductions and attacks by States on community-based services, it is critical to put aside differences and join to fight what the two communities have in common.

3. There really is power in numbers!  Can you imagine a State legislative hearing with twenty-five year old wheelchair uses holding hands with seventy-five year old wheelchair uses demanding their right to live in the community and not being dumped into nursing homes.

4.  How about next year, during the Congressional reauthorization hearings, joining forces? Tell Congress that all people with disabilities, regardless of age, want the right to receive services in their own homes.

5.  The increased Medicaid funds for Money Follows the Person grants must focus on getting anyone out of nursing homes who wants to live in the community - not just people with disabilities under 60 years old. Older Americans do not enter nursing homes because they want to; they do not have community-based services offered to them. If both communities combined their efforts, they could have a significant impact of enhancing waivers - especially in those 20 States that have not yet received MFP grants but probably will be applying for them very soon.

6. The Independent Living Centers serve many older Americans with disabilities. Yet, the AAAs and ILCs in most states keep each other at some distance. As the under 60s younger Americans with disabilities become the over 60s older Americans with disabilities, yes it really happens, the disability issues and culture will cross the age barrier. Let's hope that the people take the lead and make these organization really work together.
To not take the 2011 reauthorization as an opportunity to address these issues and to jointly work out strategies is perilous.

POWER concedes nothing without a struggle.

    Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues

Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.

To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada@cs.com or call 215-627-7100.

Legislation Improves Access to Medicare

Many people are misinformed about when they should enroll in Medicare. The Medicare Rights Center receives calls almost daily from consumers, as well as insurers and employers, who are confused by the current enrollment rules. Older Americans and people with disabilities who have mistakenly declined Medicare Part B as a result of innocent errors or misinformation may sometimes find themselves with no health coverage at all. Some have to wait months to over a year before they have coverage.
 
New legislation, The Medicare Enrollment Protection Act of 2010 (H.R. 5588), establishes additional Medicare Part B enrollment periods, which allow individuals to enroll in Medicare without delay. The legislation is supported by the House of Representatives Seniors Task Force and was introduced by Congressman Kurt Schrader, Democrat of Oregon, on Wednesday June 23.   

Read more about the Medicare Enrollment Protection Act of 2010.

GOP moves to repeal healthcare law - TheHill.com

Image via Wikipedia

By Molly K. Hooper

House Republican leaders introduced a bill Thursday to repeal and replace the sweeping healthcare law adopted in late March.

According to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the measure would repeal the current law and replace it with the alternative the minority party offered to the original healthcare legislation last November.
Continue Reading

Frist and Daschle Agree on Merits of Healthcare Reform Law from MedPage Today

By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today

ormer GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, MD, told hospital administrators Monday that he still "sort of likes" the healthcare reform bill that Democrats muscled through Congress earlier this year.

Yes, the same bill -- the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) -- that became law without an an iota of Republican support.

Frist, a thoracic surgeon, told Time magazine back in October that if he were still in Congress, he would vote for the bill. And his support apparently hasn't wavered. On Monday afternoon he said he would give an "A" grade to the provisions in the law aimed at expanding insurance to an additional 32 million people.

Cost, however, is another matter. While most Republicans would likely slap a failing grade on the cost aspect of the law, Frist said he'd rank it a "C."

"I like the bill," Frist said during a panel discussion with former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle at the American Hospital Association's (AHA's) annual meeting. "I think it's got lots of positive stuff in it, other than the costs."
Continue Reading

TIME GOES BY | If You Thought the Gregg/Conrad Commission was a Bad Idea...

Image via Wikipedia

by Ronni Bennett

On the day of President Obama's State of the Union address, Republican Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin introduced a budget proposal that would, according to the Congressional Budget Office [pdf], create a budget surplus of about five percent by the year 2080. The three main changes that Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future would make are:

• Restructure the federal tax code to eliminate all taxes on interest, dividends, capital gains and estates (which mostly benefits the rich)

• Privatize Medicare and Medicaid

• Privatize Social Security

In other words, the proposal would transfer even more wealth from the working and middle classes to the rich while making it more difficult for everyone to get the health care they need and deserve, not to mention jeopardizing everyone's retirement.

As Ezra Klein put in the Washington Post, “Ryan's budget proposes reforms that are nothing short of violent.” The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare agrees: the plan “decimates Social Security and Medicare in the name of deficit reduction.”

Nowhere in Ryan's Roadmap does the word "defense" appear in relation to the military. There are no spending cuts in it except to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and it increases costs to individuals for those programs and private coverage as it simultaneously cuts benefits.

Continue Reading

Virginia attorney general wants more outpatient treatment for mentally ill - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

By Tom Jackman

One of the best ways to treat severely mentally ill people, experts say, is with mandatory outpatient treatment rather than forcing them into hospitals or institutions. After the shootings at Virginia Tech by a mentally ill student in 2007, the Virginia General Assembly changed the law the next year to allow more outpatient treatment.

But even fewer people were ordered into outpatient treatment in the law's first year.

So on Thursday, new Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) will push for a new law that would allow doctors to order patients into outpatient treatment after they are stabilized in a hospital or institution.

The law could save Virginia considerable money and open up more bed space by getting stable patients out of hospitals, Cuccinelli said. The attorney general also is seeking an increase in the time allowed for mental-health professionals to examine and evaluate people once they are taken into custody. That also would give patients more time to stabilize.

Continue Reading

Health Care Reform Now Seen on Life Support - Pew Research Center

The public's take on the chances that health care legislation will be enacted this year shifted dramatically after Brown's Jan. 19 victory, which will end the Democrats' effective control of 60 Senate seats and their ability to stop Republican filibusters. About two-thirds (67%) now say they do not think a health care reform bill will be passed into law this year, while 27% say they think it will, according to the latest weekly News Interest Index survey conducted Jan. 22-25 among 1,010 adults nationwide by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. This is a reversal from the previous week's News Interest Index survey when 57% said they thought legislation would pass this year, while 33% said it would not.

Continue Reading

Related articles by Zemanta

• Kaiser Health News: Health Care Polls Don't Tell Whole Story (dailykos.com)
• The Democrats' Five Stages of Grief Over Health Care - Reason Magazine (gloucestercitynews.net)
• AP Poll: Fine Print in Health Care Prompts Worries (abcnews.go.com)

The Seminal » Watercooler – Reid: “We’re Not On Health Care Now.”

Image via Wikipedia

By: Jim Moss

When health care reform hit the agenda last summer, Harry Reid wanted to wrap things up by the end of August. That was then, this is now. The way Democrats are talking this week, we’ll be lucky to see a bill on Obama’s desk by August of this year, if ever.

Continue Reading

State senator proposes Medicare bill for stricter sales guidelines - Columbia Missourian

Image via Wikipedia

BY Brian Krebs

Insurance companies could face tougher state rules in selling Medicare under a measure presented to the Senate committee Tuesday.

Sen. Norma Champion, R-Springfield, is sponsoring the bill.

The bill has two main objectives, Champion told the Small Business, Insurance and Industry Committee. While many insurance companies already refund any prepaid premiums upon cancellation, the bill would mandate such action for Medicare supplement policies and any long-term insurance policies. Seniors often want to pay their premiums ahead of time, Champion said.

Catherine Edwards of Area Agency on Aging testified that the bill was a matter of equity and fairness to Missouri seniors.

Continue Reading

Sharp Expansion of HUD’s “Moving-To-Work”Demonstration Raises Serious Concerns — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Image via Wikipedia

By Will Fischer

A proposal before Congress would sharply expand HUD’s Moving-to-Work (MTW) demonstration. Unless important limitations are added, this expansion would reduce the number of families receiving housing assistance by shifting funds out of the Section 8 housing voucher program. It also would expose more low-income families to risky policies than is necessary to test innovative approaches, and allow local policies to diverge to a degree that could weaken housing assistance programs.

The proposal is part of the Section 8 Voucher Reform Act (SEVRA), which overall is an important, well-crafted measure containing significant improvements to the voucher program and other federal rental assistance programs; the House Financial Services Committee approved the bill in July 2009. SEVRA includes a provision that would allow up to 80 state and local housing agencies to participate in the Moving-to-Work demonstration program (compared to 30 today) and rename it the Housing Innovation Program (HIP).

Despite its name, MTW is not focused primarily on supporting employment. MTW allows HUD to grant sweeping waivers of a wide range of federal statutes and regulations to agencies that administer voucher and public housing programs in order to test experimental policies. It also allows HUD to establish special funding formulas for MTW agencies and to permit them to shift funds between the voucher program and public housing.

SEVRA’s MTW provision would constitute a fundamental and far reaching change to federal housing policy, as the expanded demonstration could affect close to 1 million vouchers and public housing units — about 30 percent of the total nationally.

Continue Reading

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Podcast: The Current Status of Health Reform

01-05-10-health-reform-final.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

Health Insurance Exchanges in Health Care Reform: Legal and Policy Issues

The two health reform bills pending in Congress represent quite different understandings of what an exchange is, what it does, how it is organized, and how it functions. How those differences are resolved is likely to determine the extent to which the eventual exchanges accomplish their goals and whether they avoid the difficulties that have afflicted earlier attempts at creating and operating exchanges. This report describes design and function issues raised by exchanges, prior experience with exchanges, the provisions of the pending House and Senate bills that affect exchanges, and policy issues raised by the legislation.

Full Report