Tag Archives for Elder Justice Coalition

43 Days to Reauthorize the Older Americans Act

Published in RINewsToday on August 18, 2025

The clock is ticking. Funding for the Older Americans Act (OAA) is currently secured only through September 30, 2025—that’s just 43 days away. Unless Congress acts to reauthorize the law or approve new appropriations before the start of FY 2026 on October 1, funding could lapse. A bipartisan effort must be made on Capitol Hill to ensure both reauthorization and the FY 2026 budget are addressed, avoiding any interruption in services for America’s older adults.

Last reauthorized in 2020, the OAA expired during the 118th Congress. S. 4776, spearheaded by Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the committee’s ranking member, passed the Senate by unanimous consent last year. However, the House failed to pass a companion measure due to unrelated political disagreements.

Two months ago, Chairman Cassidy and nine co-sponsors reintroduced the OAA Reauthorization Act of 2025. The 91-page bill, S. 2120, would renew funding and strengthen services for older Americans. It was referred to the Senate HELP Committee the day it was introduced, where hearings, markups, and a committee vote are expected. If approved, it will move to the full Senate for consideration. As of press time, a companion bill had not yet been introduced in the House.

Chairman Cassidy’s co-sponsors include Senators Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY, Rick Scott (R-FL), chair of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), and Susan Collins (R-ME).

Since its passage in 1965, the OAA has provided vital nutrition, social, and health services to millions of seniors. The legislation was originally sponsored by Rep. John E. Fogarty (D-RI) in the House and Sen. Lister Hill (D-AL) in the Senate, and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 14, 1965.

Strengthening Programs for the Future

Although S. 2120 closely mirrors last year’s S. 4776, there are notable differences. The legislation would reauthorize OAA programs through FY 2030 and increase funding by 18% over the next four years. It also includes measures to promote innovation, strengthen program integrity, and provide better support for family caregivers and direct care workers. The bill aims to improve services for Tribal elders and older adults with disabilities, ensuring these populations can remain active and supported in their communities.

One key provision strengthens the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program (LTCOP). The bill would establish a full-time National Director position and require the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a study of state ombudsman programs. This study would assess program effectiveness, staffing challenges, recommendations for improvement, and the adequacy of current staff-to-bed ratios. The legislation also calls for updated training standards for long-term care ombudsman volunteers.

The National Family Caregiver Support Program would also be expanded. The bill encourages easier access to caregiver services, removes barriers to obtaining help, and ensures supports are both accessible and practical. It specifically requires trauma-informed services and elder abuse prevention programs to be available, helping caregivers better manage challenges in their roles.

On elder abuse prevention, S. 2120 authorizes a clearinghouse for best practices, focusing on legal and protective services to strengthen state ombudsman programs, adult protective services, and related legal supports.

Bipartisan Support and Legislative Momentum

“The Older Americans Act is crucial in helping American seniors live healthy and independent lives in the settings they choose,” said Chairman Cassidy. “This legislation strengthens these programs, ensuring they meet the needs of older Americans now and in the future,” he says.

Sen. Scott also underscored the urgency of passing S. 2120 in a released statement. “I’m proud to help lead this bipartisan legislation to strengthen support for America’s older adults and reaffirm our commitment to helping them enjoy their golden years with dignity and independence,” he said. “As Chair of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, I understand how essential it is that more than 59 million older Americans have access to critical services made possible through the Older Americans Act. Our seniors have spent their lives building and serving this country, and this bill is one way we ensure they continue to be supported, respected, and valued,” he added.

“The OAA has been a lifeline for American seniors since its passage over half a century ago,” said Sen. Gillibrand in a statement on June 18. “This landmark legislation helps our nation’s seniors thrive by supporting programs that provide nutrition assistance, home-delivered and congregate meals, transportation, caregiver support, disease prevention, and more. We owe it to seniors to continue funding these programs so they can age with dignity and respect. As ranking member of the Senate Aging Committee, I am firmly committed to getting this bill passed with bipartisan support.”

Sen. Sanders’s statement echoed that message, highlighting the broad scope of OAA-funded services: “The Older Americans Act provides federal funding for many essential programs, including combating loneliness and isolation, job training, protections from abuse, rides to the doctor and grocery store, disease prevention, caregiver support, and help for older adults to live independently at home. Not only does the Act save lives and ease human suffering, it saves money. We can waste billions on emergency room visits and unnecessary hospital stays, or we can provide seniors with the resources they need to live healthier, more dignified lives.”

“The failure to reauthorize the OAA in 2024 had tragic consequences in 2025. One in particular was the elimination of the Administration of Community Living which runs OAA programs.  Also proposals (since rejected) to end funding for Adult Protective Services and ombudsman programs. When you are in legislative limbo bad stuff can happen. It’s time for that to end,” says Robert “Bob” Blancato, serving as National Coordinator of the bipartisan 3,000-member Elder Justice Coalition, the Executive Director of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs and National Coordinator of the Defeat Malnutrition.

Advocacy and the Call to Action

National advocacy groups—including Consumer Voice, Argentum, the National Council on Aging, the National Association of Development Organizations, USAging, and the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs—are urging swift passage of S. 2120. These organizations stress that delaying re-authorization would put millions of vulnerable seniors at risk of losing essential supports.

With the many benefits the OAA delivers to Rhode Island’s older adults—and considering that the late Rep. John Fogarty of Rhode Island played a pivotal role in securing passage of the original legislation in 1965—it is only fitting that the state’s current senators take a leading role today. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) should cosponsor S. 2120 and work closely with their Senate colleagues to ensure its passage. Since there is currently no companion measure in the House, Rhode Island’s Representatives Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo must take the initiative—by urging their colleagues to introduce one, or by stepping forward themselves to lead the effort.

Congress must act before September 30 to prevent a lapse in funding. The well-being of millions of older Americans—and their ability to age in place at home with dignity — depends on it.

Nursing Home Care in the Spotlight

Published in the Woonsocket Call on August 4, 2019

Following on the heels of its March 6 hearing, “Not Forgotten: Protecting Americans from Abuse and Neglect in Nursing Homes,” the Senate Finance Committee held its second nursing home hearing this year, “Promoting Elder Justice: A Call for Reform,” on July 23, in 215 Dirksen, to study proposed reforms to reduce neglect and abuse in the nation’s nursing homes and to put a spotlight on the need to reauthorize key provisions of the Elder Justice Act.

During the two hour and twenty-minute morning hearing, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) along 11 members of the Senate committee listened to the testimony of five panel witnesses.

In his opening statement, Grassley acknowledged that the work isn’t done yet to improving the care in the nation’s nursing homes and Congress must protect nursing home and assisted living residents and those in group living arrangements from harm. The Iowa Senator noted in the recently released U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report the federal agency that provides auditing, evaluation, and investigative services for Congress, noted that while one-third of nursing home residents may experience harm while under the care of these facilities, in more than half of these cases, the harm was preventable.

Calls for Bipartisan Efforts to Improve Nursing Home Care

Grassley called on Congress to reauthorize programs, such as the Elder Justice Act, to put the brakes on the growing trend of elder an abuse fueled by social media.

Adds, Wyden, in his opening statement, there is now an opportunity for Congress to come together to hammer out bipartisan legislative reforms to fix the nation’s nursing home oversight efforts. He urged his fellow Senate committee members to work to reduce the instances of physical, sexual, mental and emotion abuse in nursing homes, that appears to be increasing. He also called for a redo to the federal nursing home rating system because it does not reflect the increased prevalence of abuse.

During the first panel, Megan H. Tucker, Senior Advisor for Legal Review, of the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), stated that abuse and neglect oftentimes are not properly identified, reported or even addressed. While most providers are delivering good care, Tucker warned that Health and Human Service safeguards are lacking.

Tucker testified that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should use data more effectively and close the gaps in their reporting process to ensure that abuse and neglect are identified and the deficiencies corrected.

Concluding the first panel, John E. Dicken, Director, Health Care, of the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO), discussed a newly released GAO report, released at the hearing, that detailed a growing trend of abuse and neglect of residents. According to one GAO report findings, abuse deficiencies more than doubled between 2013 (430) and 2017 (875), with the greatest increase in actual harm and immediate jeopardy deficiencies, and that abuse is still under-reported, he said. The GAO report also expressed concern over “significant gaps” with CMS’s oversight.

Leading the second panel, Robert Blancato, Coordinator of the Elder Justice Coalition, called on Congress to reauthorize, the Elder Justice Act. With elder abuse becoming a “national emergency,” he urged lawmakers to dedicate funding for Adult Protective Services at the local and state levels. Blancato also stressed the importance of strengthening the long-term care ombudsman program, continuing the Elder Justice Coordinating Council, authorizing an Advisory Board on Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation, and finally funding for elder abuse forensic centers.

President and CEO, Mark Parkinson, of the Washington, DC-based American Health Care Association (AHCA), representing nearly 10,000 of the 15,000 plus nursing homes in the country who provide care to nearly four million individuals each year, stated he was not at the hearing to defend poor care but to provide solutions to Congress to prevent such incidents from happening again.

Fixing the Problem

Parkinson testified that over the past seven years, facilities participating in AHCA’s quality initiative, have shown improvement in 18 of 24 quality measures. Specifically, there are less hospital readmissions, fewer antipsychotic medications being prescribed, staff are spending more time than ever before with residents and today’s nursing homes are more person-centered care today than ever before.

Parkinson called on lawmakers to improve employee background check systems, add patient satisfaction data to CMS’s nursing home rating system, address the severe staffing shortage and to adequate fund Medicaid.

Finally, Lori Smetanka, Executive Director of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, ended the second panel discussions, by warning that more must be done to protect nursing home residents from abuse.

Smetanka urged Congress to take steps to enforce minimum requirements for sufficient staffing, establish standards and oversight for nursing home ownership and operations, prevent rollback of nursing home regulatory standards, increase the transparency of information and to strengthen and adequately fund elder justice provisions.

Now, with the Congress putting poor nursing home care on its policy radar screen, both Democratic and Republic congressional leadership must work closely together to come up with bipartisan solutions. Fix this problem once and for all.

Senate Finance Committee members — Senators Lankford, Stabenow, Daines, Menendez, Carper, Cardin, Warner, Casey, Brown, Cortez Masto, and Hassan – attended the July 23 hearing

To listen to this Senate Finance Committee hearing, go to http://www.c-span.org/video/?462733-1/finance.

For a copy of the GAO report, http://www.gao.gov/assets/710/700418.pdf.