Tag Archives for Medicaid

Cicilline: Let’s Bring Back the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging

Published in the Woonsocket Call on March 5, 2017

Twenty-three years after the House eliminated the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging, Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-RI) introduced a House resolution days ago to reestablish the House select committee, once charged with investigating and putting a spotlight on aging policy, spurring legislation and other actions. During the last Congressional session, Cicilline, attracting 63 cosigners (no Republicans) out of 435 lawmakers, threw his simple resolution into the House legislative hopper only to see no action taken.

During the 115th Congress, on March 1, 2016, Cicilline introduced House Resolution 16, which would bring back the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging. Its charge would be to conduct a continuing comprehensive studies on specific aging policy to identify issues, problems and trends. Like the former House Select Committee, its work would not be limited by narrow jurisdictional boundaries of the standing committees but broadly at the targeted aging issue.

According to Cicilline, all standing and select committees of the House (except Appropriations) are authorized by a simple House resolution, detailing purpose, defining membership and any other issue that needs to be addressed, and funding is then provided through appropriations.

House Aging Panel to Play Important Role in Today’s Congress

It is extremely obvious to Cicilline and his 24 Democratic cosigners that included Rep. James R. Langevin (D-RI), about the important role the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging would play in today’s Congress. In explaining why he introduced the simple resolution, Cicilline tells this writer that, “Our nation’s seniors deserve dedicated attention by lawmakers to consider the legislative priorities that affect them, including Social Security and Medicare, the rising cost of prescription drugs, poverty, housing issues, long-term care, and other important issues.”

“As you know, the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging was active in the House of Representatives between 1974 and 1993 with the purpose of “advising Congress and the American people on how to meet the challenge of growing old in America,” noted Cicilline, who represents the state’s First Congressional District. “ The select committee did not have legislative authority, but conducted investigations, held hearings, and issued reports to inform Congress on issues related to aging,” he said.

Cicilline says, “The reestablishment of this Select Committee would emphasize Congress’ commitment to our current and future seniors and would allow us to focus our energy to ensure that they are able to live with dignity and enjoy a high quality of life,”

A newly operational House Permanent Select Committee on Aging would be charged with conducting ongoing comprehensive studies to examine the myriad of problems that older Americans face, taking a look at income maintenance, poverty and welfare, housing, health (including medical research), employment, education, recreation, and long-term care.

The newly established House Select Committee would also study ways that would encourage the development of public and private sector programs and policies that would keep older Americans active in their community. Finally, hearings would generate federal policies to encourage coordination of both governmental and private sector programs designed to deal with problems of aging. House Lawmakers and staff on this Select Committee would also review any policy recommendations made by the President or by the White House Conference on Aging that impact the nation’s older population.’

Hammering the Nail in the Casket

Claude Pepper’s death in 1989, who had served as a former Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging, might have been an omen to aging groups of the bleak future of the House Aging panel. In 1993, Congress moved to tighten its belt to match President Clinton’s White House staff cuts. Democratic House leadership’s efforts to streamline its operations by slashing $1.5 million from its budget jurisdictions over aging policy would lead to its elimination in that year.

If alive in 1993, Rep. Pepper (D-Florida), serving as the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging, its chair for six years and considered by many to be the nation’s most visible Congressional advocate for the nation’s seniors, would have fought tooth and nail to save his beloved Select Committee.
House lawmakers who opposed the elimination of this Select Committee warned that standing committee staff did not have the time nor resources to thoroughly investigate aging policy but this select committee did. Even with these arguments and the intense lobbying of aging groups, including AARP, National Council on Aging, National Council of Senior Citizens, and Older Woman’s League, the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging could not be saved. No vote was scheduled to continue its existence on March 31, 1993 when its authorization automatically expired.

The former House Permanent Select Committee on Aging did have an impact on crafting national aging policy. In 1993, with the demise of this select committee staff, writer Rebecca H. Patterson reported on March 31, 1993 in the St. Petersburg Times that Staff Director Brian Lutz said that during its 18 years, the House Aging panel “has been responsible for about 1,000 hearings and reports.”

Throughout its existence, the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging prodded Congress to abolish forced retirement, reform nursing home operations and reduce abuse against patients, to increase home care benefits, cover breast screening for older women, combat elder abuse, improve elderly housing as well as establish research and care centers for Alzheimer’s Disease.

Support from the Trenches

It’s about time that Congress brings back the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging, say long time aging advocates.

As a former Staff Director of the Senate Select Special Committee on Aging, Max Richtman, CEO and President of the Washington-DC based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, says bringing back the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging is “long overdue.” The House Aging panel will once again provide serious oversight and lay the ground work for House legislative proposals impacting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he says.

According to Richtman, the Rhode Island Congressman is highly regarded by House Democratic lawmakers and was recently appointed to a Democratic leadership position,” he says. “America’s seniors have been looking for “a champion in the mold of the late Rep. Claude Pepper for a very long time, he says, noting that Cicilline “may well be just the person to fill his shoes.”

Fernando Torres-Gil, M.S.W., Ph.D., Director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, says “The U.S. House Select Committee on Aging was a leading voice for older persons and an aging society and with illustrious champions for the elderly. Claude Pepper and Edward Roybal were examples of congressional leadership on protecting Social Security and enhancing nursing home protections.” As a former staff director of this select committee during the l980s, Torres-Gil remembered how important it was to have this committee “gerontologize” Congressional lawmakers. “It became in its time the largest committee in the Congress with members on both sides of the aisle vying to be appointed to this committee,” he said.

After the elimination of the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging in 1993, a brief effort was undertaken by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) when she became House Speaker to bring back the Aging panel but this attempt was not successful. It’s time for Pelosi and her Democratic lawmakers to make a full court press to make it happen in 2017.

Cicilline’s legislative efforts to resurrect the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging is in the hands of GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan who controls the chamber. The Washington, DC-based Leadership Council of Aging Organizations, a coalition of 72 national nonprofit aging advocacy groups, could play a key role in advocating for and supporting the Resolution that would establish, once again, a House Select Committee focused on the issues of aging in America.

Can nation survive Trump and GOP’s control of Capitol Hill?

Published in the Pawtucket TImes on January 9, 2017

Almost two months ago when GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump trounced his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton and his party took control of both chamber of Congress. Trump’s surprising victory stunned both voters and political commentators and pundits covering the heated presidential race. According to a Nov. 16, 2016 Gallup Poll, 80 percent of Trump’s voters are “excited,” while 76 percent of Clinton’s voters say they are “afraid.” A large majority of the respondents (75 percent) shared one reaction: “surprise.”

Days after the tumultuous election, Darrell M. West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Washington, D.C.-based the Brookings Institution, penned his thoughts about how president-elect Trump might govern the divided nation. His posting, “Four Scenarios for a Trump Presidency,” can be found on the Brooking’s FixGov blog, written on Nov. 14, 2016.

Speculating on Trump’s White House Governance

In his 1,286-word blog, West, an American author, political scientist, pollical commentator who formerly taught Political Science at Brown University for 26 years, says that Trump might choose to govern as a traditional Republican endorsing tax cuts, deregulation and repealing Obamacare. Like other GOP politicians he would call for reinstituting law and order, fighting ISIS and other extremist militant groups and controlling illegal immigration from coming into this country. “These typical GOP positions might resolve his philosophical differences on “entitlement reform and free trade,” says West, an author or co-author of 22 books.

Trump just might even turn over the reins of the presidency to Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, says West, these individuals “becoming the de facto prime minister.”

According to West, like president-elect Trump did during the presidential campaign, he might take on the role of a “popular rogue.” A “populist Trump could break conventional political rules and “attack the political establishment to represent the little guy,” notes West’s blog posting.

West also suggests that Trump might ultimately fail as president. After all, he lost the popular vote by 2 percentage points — or nearly three million votes — and alienated women, millennials, minorities and immigrants with his insulting comments. Scandals and disclosures about his personal behavior and continuing concerns about serious financial conflicts of interest could derail his “honeymoon” phase at the beginning of his presidential term and negatively impact his popularity ratings, he says.

West also speculates in his blog that policy backlashes due to millions losing health care coverage by his push to repeal Obamacare, privatizing Medicare or gutting Social Security, a slow-down in the economy or even Trump’s continued liking of Russian President Vladimir Putin, might make him a one-term president, like President Jimmy Carter.

Finally, public outcry and violent protest may turn Trump into an authoritarian leader. If this happens West expresses concerns smear campaigns(waged by White House Strategist Steve Bannon), the use of federal agencies to “attack adversaries” and the use of local police to “crack down” on protestors. “Firing top intelligence officials would suggest that Trump wants compliant people who will do his bidding against foreign and domestic adversaries,” he says.

Big Changes with the GOP in Charge

“It is a scary time in American politics,” says West, who expects to see big changes on Capitol Hill in 2017. The Brookings political pundit predicts that a Trump White House with a GOP controlled Congress will tackle large tax cuts, corporate tax reform, repealing Obamacare (but not having anything to replace it with), and reversing the Dodd Frank financial regulation bill. With the Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress he does not expect gridlock during the first six months of the 115th Congress.

West predicts that, in the long-run, many of the GOP president and Republican Congressional leadership policy initiatives will be problematic. “They are governing as if they have a clear mandate even though they lost the popular vote, he says.

West, like some political observers, expects many of the GOP’s conservative policy proposals to hurt the people who voted for Trump. The tax cuts go disproportionately to the top one percent and proposed changes in Medicare and Medicaid will limit medical care, he said.

“In a couple of years, the economy probably will be much weaker than it is today, which will undermine the very rationale of Trump’s candidacy,” says West, noting that if this happens the newly-elected president could have a 30 percent job approval rating by 2018. “Of course, that is when he really will become dangerous! The risk is he may try things to improve his poll numbers, such as identifying scapegoats or confronting adversaries,” warns West.

“GOP Congressional leaders have plans to privatize Medicare and block grant Medicaid to the states. This will impose limitations on medical care and make it more difficulty for needy people to get the help they need,” adds West, who also sees Republicans moving to reduce home care and medical assistance to America’s elderly.

West sees the “GOP legislative initiatives as being very contentious politically, and will reinforce perceptions of the GOP as cold and heartless [to Americans].”

“Democrats will not be able to pass legislation. Their main power will be trying to block things they don’t like or stop nominations at confirmation hearings that they find problematic,” says West, noting that they will be put in a defensive posture. “They will seek to protect certain gains made during the Obama administration.

West believes that Trump’s fix for the economy will not work. “In the longer-run, there is a risk that inflation will go up. Interest rates already have risen in anticipation of this,” he says.

“The market is expecting Trump to spend a lot of money and not be able to corral spending by the same amount. That will increase deficits and drive up inflation. It will be hard to blame this on Democrats since there has been low inflation for years now. It will be pretty obvious that GOP policies are responsible for the rate increases,” West adds.

Democrats Mobilize, Video Sends Message to Congress

As president-elect Trump’s inauguration approaches, President Obama traveled to Capitol Hill last week to urge Congressional Democrats to block the GOP president and the Republican Congressional leadership’s efforts to dismantle Obamacare, the outgoing president’s signature healthcare reform law and to fight their legislative policy initiatives. Behind closed doors Obama urged Democratic lawmakers to not “rescue” the Republicans by passing replacement measures. He suggested calling the GOP’s new plan, “Trumpcare,” to ensure that they are held responsible for any disruptions in health coverage. At press time there seems to be no GOP health care plan to consider.

After Obama’s meeting Democrats lawmakers have begun using the phrase, “Make America Sick Again,” tying into Trump’s wildly recognized campaign slogan, “Make American Great Again.”

Hollywood is moving to block Trump’s policy initiatives. Almost a week ago documentarian Liz Garbus unveiled her one minute and 49 second video (#StandUpForUS), released by Humanity for Progress, to urge Congress to block any legislative initiatives pushed by Trump and his GOP allies that attack groups he marginalized during last year’s presidential campaign. Celebrities and activists lined up to participate in this video. They included Rosie Perez, Keegan-Michael Key, Tavi Gevinson, Lea Delaria, Sally Field, Steve Buscemi, Zoe Kazan, Jeffrey Wright and Janet Mock, among others.

“The majority of Americans, regardless of who they voted for, did not vote for racism, for sexism, or for xenophobia … and yet Donald Trump won,” notes the video. At the end of the video, viewers are asked to email the video to members of Congress, as well as to sign a petition on http://www.MoveOn.org, to resist Trump and the GOP agenda,

Stay Tuned

The aftermath of the 2017 presidential election has politically split our nation. Although Trump won the Electoral College, Clinton, the former secretary of state, pulled in over 64 million votes. Even without a clear legislative mandate President-elect Trump and Republican Congressional leadership are moving at a quick pace to make major policy and systemic changes during the first 100 days of the 115th Congress. Democrats are now forced to play the loyal opposition for the next four years and fight against GOP policies rammed through the legislative process. Will GOP legislative fixes push American in the right direction? Or will the nation survive these changes? Stay tuned.

Kleyman Gives Post Mortem Report on 2015 WHCoA

Published in Woonsocket Call on January 17, 2016

In 1958, Rhode Island Congressman John E. Fogarty, a former bricklayer, introduced legislation calling for a White House Conference on Aging (WHCoA) to “promote the dignity, health and economic security of older Americans.” President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the enacted legislation and the first conference was held in 1961, with subsequent conferences in 1971, 1981, 1995, 2005 and 2015.

Looking back, the 1961 WHCoA played a major role in the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, even the Older Americans Act. Ten years later, the conference’s recommendation’s for automatic cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security ultimately became law in 1975. The founding of the Senate Aging Committee came from recommendations at the 1971 WHCoA.

A Year Marked with Anniversaries

The one-day 2015 WHCoA (usually three days) was actually held at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but with a much smaller assembly than in previous years at Washington hotels, such as in 1995, which had 2,221 delegates and 2005, where about 1,100 selected delegates gathered. But his time, new technologies allowed others to tune in. The White House could only accommodate a few hundred dignitaries.

Over 700 watch parties were held in every state and thousands of people tuned in on Monday, July 13, 2015, to watch the day-long proceedings by live webcast. Over 9,000 people participated, too, through social media on Twitter and Facebook.

But, Paul Kleyman, editor of the Generations Beat Online (GBONews.org), a E-Newsletter for age beat journalist, noted in the Jan. 17, 2016 issue, that this year’s aging conference had no delegate selection process like previous ones. “As we’ve noted previously, though, more than one expert expressed disappointment that the Obama Administration made little effort to muster bipartisan support among GOP congressional members who might well have wanted some representation on the issue going into the 2016 election season. Historically, governors and members of Congress got to pick local constituents in fields from retirement finance to health services with a prestigious delegate appointment to the conference,” says the seasoned journalist who served as a delegate at the 1995 WHCoA.

A Call for an Expansion of Social Security

The WHCoA’s scheduled date in 2015 fell in the year where advocates in aging celebrated the 50th anniversary of Medicare, Medicaid and the Older Americans Act as well as the 80th anniversary of Social Security. Kleyman notes that the newly released 34 page WHCoA report (with 49 pages of appendices) says, “The 2015 White House Conference on Aging (WHCOA) provided an opportunity to recognize the importance of these key programs as well as to look ahead to the next decade.”

President Obama was sent a letter with 74 Congressional cosigners reminding him that over half of today’s older workers are not expected to be able to have sufficient resources upon their retirement to maintain their current standard of living. Although they called for an expansion of Social Security, Kleyman says discussion was “barely audible” at the aging conference.

In addressing the WHCoA attendees, Obama called for “keeping Social Security strong, protecting its future solvency,” pledging to fight “privatization of the program. Kleyman observed that proposed new rules to help workers increase their retirement “stopped short of supporting stronger benefits that they need.”

It’s a Mixed Bag

But, Kleyman says that aging advocates consider the WHCoA’s recommendations a mixed bag. In his E-newsletter article, he references a Jan. 6, 2015 blog penned by Kevin Prindiville who serves as executive director of Justice in Aging. “The report details piecemeal public actions and private initiatives, but ignores the opportunity to lay out an ambitious policy proposal to address pressing systemic challenges,” he says.

Kleyman also zeros in on Prindiville’s observations as to why this year’s WHCoA was of the scaled down. He observed, “To those who followed the WHCOA closely, this was not a surprise. Congress’ failure to reauthorize the Older Americans Act, and the lack of appropriate funding for the conference, meant WHCOA organizers had to produce a conference without a budget. With little infrastructure and support, the White House did not propose any new big, bold ideas to prepare for a population that is literally booming.”

Kleyman says that attendees were pleased to see a recommendation calling for improving the quality and safety requirements in the nation’s 15,000 long-term care facilities and a proposal to allow low-income and frail home bound elders and people with disabilities to use food stamps for meals on wheels.

Meanwhile, attendees were told at this event that physicians would be paid starting in 2016 to counsel patients about their end-of-life care, adds Kleyman, noting that recommendations did not address the nation’s increasing diversity.  Yet, there was no discussion on hospice and palliative care, affordable senior housing issues, and little discussion of elder abuse, the need for adequate transportation and long-term care, he says.

See You in 2025

According to the Census Bureau, in 2050, the 65-and-older population will be 83.7 million, almost double of what it was in 2012. The 2015 WHCoA conference has taken place with a skyrocketing older population, referred to as the “Graying of America.” Can this year’s conference provide policy makers with a road map to shape the delivery of services for years to come? As Kleyman says, probably not. “So it goes, at least until 2025,” he says.