Category Archives for Congress

National Aging Coalition pushes to bring back House Aging Committee in DC

Published in RINewsToday on March 28, 2022

In 1992, aging advocacy groups fought unsuccessfully to keep the House Select Committee on Aging  (HSCoA) from being eliminated. The House had pulled the plug on funding for the HSCoA as a cost-cutting measure and to stream-line the legislative process at the end of the 102nd Congress without much notice in the Democratic rules package adopted in Jan.1993 during the beginning of the 103rd Congress.

As the dust settled after the dissolving of the HSCoA, Congressman Michael Bilirakis (R-FL), a former committee member, stated in an article, “Congress Eliminates Committee on Aging,” published March 31, 1993, in the Tampa Bay Times,” I honestly don’t’ think other committees would cover all aging issues.” AARP agreed with Bilirankis’s assessment. “Seniors need a specific forum,” said Tom Otwell, spokesperson for AARP. “The population is getting older, and issues are certainly not going away,” he said. 

During its 18 years of existence, its Congressional oversight on a myriad of aging issues included Social Security, Medicare, nursing homes, aging bias and elderly housing. This oversight influenced the introduction and passage of major legislation enhancing the quality of life of America’s seniors. 

Thirty years later, the Washington, DC-based Leadership Council on Aging Organizations (LCAO), representing 69 national aging advocacy groups, recognized the opportunity to bring back the HSCoA by endorsing H. Res. 583, a resolution introduced in the 117th Congress by Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI) to reestablish the HSCoA when introduced Aug. 10, 2021.  The Rhode Island Congressman has also introduced this resolution during the last three congresses.

H. Res. 583 would reestablish the HSCoA without having legislative jurisdiction, this being no different when the initial permanent committee previously existed. The 214-word resolution would authorize a continuing comprehensive study and review of aging issues, such as income maintenance, poverty, housing, health (including medical research), welfare, employment, education, recreation and long-term care. These efforts assisted the House’s 12 Standing Committees in the creation and advocacy for legislation they drafted. At press time, the resolution has been referred to the House Rules Committee for consideration.

According to the Congressional Research Service, it’s quite simple to create an ad hoc (temporary) select committee in the House chamber. All it takes is a simple resolution that contains language establishing the committee – giving a purpose, defining membership, and detailing other issues that need to be addressed. Salaries and expenses of standing committees, special and select, are authorized through the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. 

Calling for co-sponsor support

While supporting Cicilline’s proposal, LCAO went one step further by calling on House lawmakers three weeks ago, in correspondence, to become co-sponsors. LCAO asked its members to co-sponsor the bill in order to drive the House Democratic Caucus to approve it and bring it to the House floor for a vote. As a House committee, it only needs the House’s approval, where there is now a majority of Democrats.

The time is ripe for the HSCoA to be reestablished, say LCAO. “Every day, 12,000 Americans turn 60. By 2030, nearly 75 million people in the U.S. – or 20% of the country – will be age 65 and older. As America grows older, the need for support and services provided under programs like Social Security, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Older Americans Act also increases,” noted in correspondence signed by 30 Coalition members.

LCAO stressed that the HSCoA worked effectively in partnership with the House’s 12 Standing Committees with jurisdiction over aging programs and services. “The House Aging Committee, which flourished in the 1970s under chairperson Claude Pepper, partnered and magnified the work of the standing committees in a team effort and a bipartisan manner, holding many joint hearings with them and helping to pass the end of mandatory retirement 359-2 in the House and 89-10 in the Senate, as well as protecting Social Security, exposing nursing home abuses and setting transparency standards, expanding home health care benefits as a way older persons could often delay or avoid the need for being forced into nursing homes and so much more. Ways and Means, Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce and Space, Science and Technology were just some of the Committees who benefited from the partnership and appreciated the House Aging Committee’s help in reaching senior citizens,” stated LCAO. 

As seniors now settle into living in a post-pandemic world, passage of H. Res. 583 becomes even more important. “Historically, the HSCoA served as a unique venue that allowed the open, bipartisan debate from various ideological and  philosophical perspectives to promote the consensus that, in turn, permeated pandemic, and the coronavirus continues to take its toll, exacerbating the problem of social isolation and family separation across generations.  Addressing the needs of older Americans in a post-pandemic world will require vigilant oversight and action,” noted LCAO.

Op Ep tells the story and the need for passage of Cicilline’s resolution 

Robert Weiner, former Clinton White House spokesman and Chief of Staff of the HSCoA under Congressman Claude Pepper,(D-FL) and Ben Lasky, senior policy analyst at Robert Weiner Associates News and Public Affairs, recently penned an op-ed for the Miami Herald which calls for the passage of Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline’s H. Res. 583, to reestablish the HSCOA. With threats of Social Security “reforms” (cuts) and the mishandling of Covid in nursing homes which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, the Committee is needed once again.

Weiner and Lasky say the largest part of Pepper’s congressional legacy, especially as he grew older, was chairing the HSCoA, which featured banning mandatory retirement (with Colonel Sanders as a witness), protecting nursing homes, expanding home health care, and protecting Social Security with solvency through 2034.

“Pepper’s bill that banned mandatory retirement passed 359-2 in the House and 89-10 in the Senate,” they said.

They argue, “The elderly are now threatened with Social Security reforms,” (meaning cuts). Senior citizens also disproportionately died from Covid in nursing homes in Florida, New York and around the country. More than 200,000 have died in nursing homes. Forbes called ‘The Most Important Statistic’ the fact that 42% of US Covid deaths in the first five months of the pandemic happened in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. That number later went down to around 33%. When standards, distance standards, vaccines, and transparency started to kick in (under pressure in many facilities), it got a little better but for many it was too little too late. Tens of thousands died because health care workers failed to follow the transparency, staffing, and safety standards that Pepper had passed into law in nursing homes.”

They continue, “Once vaccines became widely available in 2021, a majority of nursing home workers remained unvaccinated for six more months. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities were let off the hook by governors from Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) for hiding their number of Covid deaths.”

Weiner and Lasky assert, “Older voters vote Democratic and Republican. It’s close. In 2020, while Joe Biden won the popular vote by 7 million, Donald Trump won the senior vote 52% to 47%. It’s not a matter of party. Seniors’ quality of life is not political.”

They conclude, “With Pepper’s legacy as the guide, pandemic deaths, nursing homes, home care, Social Security, and Medicare would be improved by Sunlight of Oversight.”

For the benefit of America’s seniors, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team must consider giving H. Res 583 their political support and blessing, calling for a vote in House Rules Committee, if passed allowing for swift consideration on the floor.  As Weiner remembers, “the last HSCoA was so well received and successful because of the strong relationships and bonds to the Standing committees and successful outreach to seniors.” The former HSCoA staff director notes that during his tenure membership grew from 29 to 50 members. “After the committee began, in just a few years, everyone wanted to be on it.” 

AARP’s Otwell’s observations that the nation’s population is getting older, and the issues are not going to go away  and that “Seniors ‘need a specific forum” are true even 29 years later. House lawmakers must pass H. Res. 583 for America’s seniors to give them this specific forum that they deserve.

To read the Miami Herald Op Ed, go to www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article259629314.html

World issues pushed nursing home reform to the side in State of the Union. But it’s there

Published on March 7, 2022 in Rhode Island News Today

More than a week ago, President Joe Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sitting behind him in the House Chamber in the United States Capitol, delivered his first State of the Union Address. Harris and Pelosi made history marking the first time two women have been on the dais during a presidential address before the joint session and the American people

According to C-SPAN, Biden’s speech was the fourth-longest of the seven most recent presidents’ speeches, beating out Presidents George H.W. Bush, George H. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Amid frequent applause breaks, chanting from both sides of the aisle and heckling, Biden’s prepared remarks delivered Tuesday, March 1, 2022, totaled around 7,762 words, lasting over one hour and two minutes.

Biden spoke mostly on-script with his prepared remarks on a wide range of topics before lawmakers, Supreme Court Justices, guests, many waving small blue and yellow Ukraine flags or wearing the country’s colors to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine. While the first half touched on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the need for a global coalition to respond, the second half addressed inflation, COVID-19 and the “new normal,” increasing domestic manufacturing, health care, prescription drugs, energy and taxes, voting rights legislation, and the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. 

Biden concluded his speech by proposing a “Unity agenda” calling for a fight against the opioid epidemic, pushing Congress to pass a mental health package, supporting Veterans returning from the battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan and finding a cure for cancer.

The State of the Union and nursing homes

While Biden’s speech briefly touched on the quality of care in the nation’s nursing homes, his Administration is clearly making this a major domestic issue.  During the address, Biden expressed strong concerns about Wall Street firms that were taking over many nations’ nursing homes. “Quality in those homes has gone down and costs have gone up. That ends on my watch,” he told the packed chamber. “Medicare is going to set higher standards for nursing homes and make sure your loved ones get the care they deserve and expect and [they’ll be] looked at closely,” he said.

A day before the State of the Union address, the White house released a detailed document, entitled, “Fact Sheet: Protecting Seniors and People with Disabilities by Improving Safety and Quality of Care in the Nation’s Nursing Homes,” outlining dozens of proposed changes on how U.S. nursing homes are regulated and operate, including a vow to adopt federal minimum staffing requirements for facilities, step up enforcement of regulations and to eliminate overcrowded patient rooms.

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that continues to wreak havoc on the nation’s nursing homes, where 200,000 residents and workers have died from COVID-19, nearly a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States, the Biden Administration says that staffing shortages are getting worse, reducing the quality of care provided to residents

Poorly performing facilities will be held accountable for improper and unsafe care and must immediately improve their services or will be cut off from tax payor dollars. Biden calls for better information to be provided to the public to assist them in better understanding the conditions they will find in each facility and to assist them in choosing the best care options available.  

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will begin to explore ways to reduce resident room crowding in nursing homes by phasing out rooms with three or more residents and promoting private, single occupancy rooms. Multi-occupancy rooms increase the risk of the spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19.  The agency will also establish a minimum nursing home staffing requirement, the adequacy of staffing is closely linked to quality of care provided.

Meanwhile, CMS also plans to strengthen the Medicare Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing Program and base payment on staffing adequacy (including over weekends) and retention and the resident experience.  Although the nation has seen a dramatic decrease in the use of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes in recent years, CMS will continue its efforts to identify problematic diagnoses and bring down “inappropriate use” of such drugs.

Enhancing accountability and oversight

The Biden Administration calls for the enhancing and accountability and oversight of the nation’s nursing homes by adequately funding inspection activities, beefing up scrutiny on more of the poorest facility performers, expanding financial penalties and other enforcement sanctions, and increasing the accountability for chain owners whose facilities provide substandard care. CMS will work with nursing homes to improve care by providing technical assistance.

To enhance transparency, CMS will create a new database that will track and identify owners and operators across states to highlight previous problems with promoting resident health and safety.  The agency will also collect and publicly report data on corporate nursing home ownership and will enhance the Nursing Home Care website. Finally, CMS will examine the role that private equity investors play in the nursing home sector.

Biden’s nursing home reforms will ensure that every nursing home has a sufficient number of adequately trained staff to provide care to the 1.4 million residents residing in over 15,500 Medicare and Medicaid facilities across the nation.  Nursing home staff turnover can be reduced by creating pathways to good-paying jobs along with ensuring staff to join a union.  CMS calls for lowering financial barriers to Nurse Assistant Training, adequate compensation and access to a realistic career ladder. The agency launches a National Nursing Career Pathways Campaign with partners including the Department of Labor.

Finally, Biden puts together his strategy to ensure emergency preparedness in nursing homes during the ongoing pandemic.  He calls for continued COVID-19 testing in nursing homes and continued COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters to be provided to residents and staff. CMS will strengthen requirements for on-site infection prevention, and make changes to its emergency preparedness requirements,   Finally, the agency will take what it has learned during the pandemic and integrate new lessons on standards of care into nursing home requirements around fire safety, infection control, and other areas, using an equity lens.

Point/Counter Point

In a released statement after Biden’s State of the Union address, AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins stated: “We were also encouraged to hear the President describe new actions to ensure that residents in nursing homes will receive the safe, high-quality care they deserve. For years, AARP and AARP Foundation have sounded the alarm about problems in America’s nursing homes. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the chronic, ongoing issues with our long-term care system and emphasized the need for reform. It is a national disgrace that more than 200,000 residents and staff in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities died. AARP urges the federal government to act swiftly to ensure minimum staffing standards, increase transparency, and hold nursing homes accountable when they do not provide quality care.”

On the other hand, the nursing home industry had its views as to Biden’s call for nursing home reforms.  “The nursing home profession has always been committed to improving the quality of care our residents receive, and we appreciate the Biden Administration joining us in this ongoing effort. Over the last decade and prior to the pandemic, the sector made dramatic improvements. Fewer people were returning to the hospital, staff were providing more one-on-one care than ever before, and the unnecessary use of antipsychotic medications significantly declined,” said Mark Parkinson president and CEO of AHCA, in a released statement.

“Those who continue to criticize the nursing home sector are the same people who refuse to prioritize our residents and staff for resources that will help save and improve lives,” noted Parkinson, whose Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization represents more than 14,000 nursing homes and long-term care facilities across the nation. “Additional oversight without corresponding assistance will not improve resident care. To make real improvements, we need policymakers to prioritize investing in this chronically underfunded health care sector and support providers’ improvement on the metrics that matter for residents,” he said.

“It’s time to stop blaming nursing homes for a once-in-a-century pandemic that uniquely targeted our residents and vilifying the heroic caregivers who did everything they could to protect the residents they have come to know as family,” said Parkinson. ““Long term care was already dealing with a workforce shortage prior to COVID, and the pandemic exacerbated the crisis. We would love to hire more nurses and nurse aides to support the increasing needs of our residents. However, we cannot meet additional staffing requirements when we can’t find people to fill the open positions nor when we don’t have the resources to compete against other employers,” he said.  

To read the White House Fact Sheet to improving the quality of care in the nation’s nursing homes, go to:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/28/fact-sheet-protecting-seniors-and-people-with-disabilities-by-improving-safety-and-quality-of-care-in-the-nations-nursing-homes/

On Monday, March 7th at 9am, AARP Rhode Island and US Senators Reed and Whitehouse will speak on the need for lower prescription drug prices in a virtual press conference.

AARP Rhode Island State Director Catherine Taylor, Volunteer State President Marcus Mitchell and Volunteer Lead Federal Liaison Dr. Phil Zarlengo will join Rhode Island US Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse for a virtual news conference highlighting the need for Congress to lower prescription drug prices. AARP Rhode Island will present the Senators with a petition signed by more than16,000 Rhode Islanders calling for Congress to act now and stop unfair drug prices.

You can listen in via ZOOM at:  

https://aarp-org.zoom.us/j/98668832992?pwd=bktuTjJBMUZhUDRaVDkvN2dCSXZqUT09

Passcode: 618357

Participants will respond to on-topic media questions posted in chat.

More information about AARP’s Fair Drug Prices campaign can be found at aarp.org/rx.

End Filibuster and Use Federal Government to Secure Elections

Published in RINewsToday.com on October 4, 2021

The clock is ticking… It’s 399 days before the upcoming midterm elections.

Following the Democrats winning the White House and taking control of both the House and Senate chambers, Republican-controlled state houses across the nation moved quickly to pass restrictive legislation to block access to vote. The Republican lawmakers see this legislative strategy as a way to protect election integrity. On the other hand, Democrats say the Republican legislative efforts are in large part motivated by false voter fraud claims coming out of the 2020 elections that continue to this day.

According to the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice (BCJ), “between   and July 14 2021, at least 18 states enacted laws that restrict access for the vote. These laws make mail voting and early voting more difficult, impose harsher voter ID requirements, and make faulty voter purges more likely among other things.More than 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions.”

“There may be more new state voting laws still to come this year. Active regular legislative sessions continue in California, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And Maine’s special legislative session is ongoing,” warns BCJ.

At the same time, more than 900 bills were dropped in the legislative hopper expanding voter access in 49 states during the 2021 legislative session, says BCJ, noting that at least, 25 states enacted 54 laws with provisions to expand voting access. These laws expanded access to early and mail voting, make voter registration easier, and restoring voting rights to Americans with past convictions.

Democratic lawmakers say Congress has the power to block Republican efforts at the state level to restrict access to voting.As of March 2021, the For the People Act passed by the House now awaits action in the Senate, and would reduce the impact of many state-level restrictions by creating new national standards for elections, while preventing common forms of voter suppression and easing access to voting. Democrats are also pushing for passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to protect voters by preventing discriminatory election laws from being implemented.

Safeguarding Ballot Access for Seniors

The Washington, DC-based National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) along with 40 senior advocates and political influencers, call on Senators Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) to support changes to the filibuster to protect older Americans’ voting rights. So long as the moderate Senators oppose filibuster reform, Senate Democrats have no legislative path to enact S.1, For the People Act, legislative, passed by the House to ensure voting rights.  Under current Senate rules, Senate Republicans can block S.1 through a filibuster, a legislative procedure requiring a “supermajority” of 60 votes for passage.  Democrats need to pass filibuster reform to pass this legislation.

In a Sept. 21 letters to the two moderate Senators, NCPSSM President and CEO Max Richtman writes that adjusting the Senate filibuster is the only way to safeguard ballot access for seniors if enough Republican Senators won’t support new federal voting rights legislation.  Such legislation is necessary, says Richtman, because of restrictive, new state laws that infringe on seniors’ right to vote by mail.

“We urge you to support a narrow change to the filibuster rule to allow the Senate to approve new voting rights legislation by a simple majority vote. This crucial legislation will help to protect our democracy and the right to vote for all Americans, including older Arizonans who cast ballots by mail,” says Richtman. 

“Currently, seniors who are immobile, sick, or don’t want to risk being infected by the delta COVID variant can request mail ballots — along with those who cannot drive or lack access to mass transit,” says Richtman. “Voting by mail allows these older citizens to exercise their constitutional rights in a safe, convenient way. In 2020, the majority of voters over age 65 cast their ballots by mail.  Multiple studies have shown vote-by-mail to be consistently free of fraud,” he says.

Richtman urged Sinema and Minchin to support a narrow change to the filibuster rule to allow the Senate to approve S. 1, the For the People Act, by a simple majority vote. “This crucial legislation will help to protect our democracy and the right to vote for all Americans, including older Arizonans who depend on voting by mail,” he says.

According to Richtman, study findings note that vote-by-mail to be consistently free of fraud.  For instance, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study results show that  only 0.00006% of 250 million votes by mailed ballots nationwide were fraudulent. Additionally, scholars at Stanford University analyzing 1996-2018 data in California, Utah and Washington found vote-by-mail did not advantage one political party over another, he said.

During the 2020 elections, many seniors chose to vote-by-mail to exercise their right to vote, more important to stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Richtman, noting that 41% of voters age 50-64 and 55% of voters over age 65 voted by mail in the 2020 election. 

“The safety and convenience of this method of voting is likely to prove equally effective in future elections – unless state legislatures decide to obstruct voting by mail,” adds Richtman.

Richtman said, “Given the advantages and encouraging results of the nation’s vote-by-mail experience, and the paucity of evidence of voter fraud, we question why so many states are moving in the opposite direction – to discourage vote-by-mail.”

Ensuring Voter Access Once and For All

“The For the People Act would protect all Americans from new state voter suppression laws by setting national mail-in voting standards and guaranteeing no-excuse mail-in voting,” says Richtman, noting that  S. 1 requires states to give every voter the option to vote by mail, calls for prepaid postage for all election materials and state-provided drop boxes for federal races.