Tag Archives for National Council on Aging

The Best Of…Former Sen. Moss’ Advocacy Commitment Will Be Missed

Published on February 3, 2003

            Last Wednesday evening, former U.S. Sen. Frank Moss of Utah died.

            After he received his law degree in 1937 from Washington, DC-based George Washington University, Moss briefly worked on the legal staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

           Throughout his legal career, he would sharpen his legal skills by working in a variety of settings.  Initially, clerking at the Utah Supreme Court, he would ultimately win an election putting him on the bench of the Salt Lake City Municipal Court in 1940.

         During the World War II, he would serve on the Judge Advocate General’s staff of the U.S. Armory Corps in England.  After the war, Moss would be elected in 1950, reelected in 1954, to serve as Salt Lake County attorney.

         Two years after his unsuccessful bid for Utah Governor, in 1956, Moss would run for Senate and win, by less than 40 percent of the vote.

         Obituaries in newspapers stated that the liberal three-term Senate Democrat was best known for his environmental work that included the establishment of national parks and recreational areas in Utah.  Moss was also recognized for drafting a series of bill protecting consumers, ranging from mandating labeling on cigarette packages about the health hazards of smoking, banning cigarette advertising on radio and television, to developing minimum safety requirements for automobiles.

           But for me and many of my colleagues in the field of aging, we will always remember Moss as being a true advocate for the nation’s elderly.

           Moss worked closely with President Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who would later become President, Hubert Humphrey and Claude Pepper getting Medicare and Medicaid enacted into law.

          Moreover, Moss will always be remembered for being the driving force behind the establishment of the Senate Special Committee on Aging in 1961.

          He also played a major role in establishing the House Committee on Aging with the late Rep. Claude Pepper.  The two special committees would later put the spotlight on aging policy issues, generating both the public and political will to bring about the needed policy changes.

          Throughout his Senate Career, in addition to authoring legislation that would require federal minimum standards for nursing homes and helping to create  the Medicare and Medicaid home health care benefits. Moss held the first hearing on hospice care and introduced legislation authorizing payment for hospice care.

           More than 40 years ago, the Special Committee on Aging, chaired by Moss, began to hold a series of hearing s on nursing homes.  It became extremely clear to his committee through its hearings, generating 1,300 pages of testimony, that both nursing home standards and enforcement by state regulatory agencies varied drastically.  Moss noted that these hearings helped to shape the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and that they also lead to series of reforms in 1967.

         Ultimately, a series of 30 hearings held between 1969 and 1976 eventually lead to the publication of a 12-volume report, entitled “Nursing Home Care in the United States: Failure in Public Policy.”

        In 1977, Moss, with coauthor Val Halmandaris (who at the time was responsible for research of the Subcommittee of Long-Term Care, but now serves as executive director of the National Association of Home Care) wrote “Too Old, Too Sick, Too Bad: Nursing Homes in America,” detailing the plight of America’s elderly.

       More than 10 years later, in a 1998 speech to the National Council on Aging, Moss expressed his concerns that American’s elderly were losing ground from all the gains they had achieved in the late 1960s and 1970s.  Congress has yet to enact a pharmaceutical drug program to put the brakes on spiraling drug costs.  Elder abuse is still running rampant throughout the nation.  Medicare expenditures are being slashed to nursing homes, home and hospice care.

        It is now time for Congress to get serious about tackling the multitude of problems thrust upon the nation by an aging society.  Moss’ advocacy comment to the nation’s elderly will be sorely missed, and his shoes will be hard to fill.

        Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based freelance writer who writes about aging, health care and medical issues.  He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

Aging Programs Get Slashed in Bush’s War Budget

Published in Pawtucket Times on February 18, 2002

In the shadow of the horrific terrorist attacks on Sept. 11th, domestic programs take the backseat in President Bush’s $ 2.13 trillion fiscal year 2003 budget, released in early February, with significant funding increases being targeted for both military and  homeland defense.

As 77 million baby boomers approach their 65th birthdays within the next decade, aging groups say the President’s wartime budget does not go far enough in many areas to meet the aging baby boomer’s needs in the coming years.

One of the most hotly debated Congressional issues is affordable prescription drugs. With the Congressional election looming next year, this is certain to be a key issue in every state. Don’t look for this issue to lose importance to seniors or to the aging groups who call for meaningful Medicare drug benefits.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next 10 years, Medicare beneficiaries will spend about $1.6 trillion out-of-pocket on prescription drugs. But the recently released Bush budget proposal only contains $ 190 billion over 10 years for Medicare reform, including $ 77 billion to assist seniors with prescription drugs.

The National Council on Aging (NCOA), a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, estimates that on average, the Bush administration’s proposal would cover less than one out of 10 dollars spend on drugs by seniors.

Martha A. McSteen, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, agreed that Bush’s budget proposal shortchanges seniors and the disabled in providing needed health care and services.

In his State of the Union address, the president restated his campaign promise to provide prescription drug coverage for every senior, noted McSteen, who added, “That is an empty promise if the budget does not contain these needed resources.

“At least $ 450 billion is needed over the next 10 years to provide a comprehensive and affordable prescription drug benefit as part of the Medicare program,” McSteen says.

John Rother, AARP’s Policy and Strategy Director, said, “Although federal budget constraints are greater than last year, so too is the need for affordable prescription drugs for Americans age 65 and over. Unfortunately, disease and pain did not disappear with the budget surplus.”

However, U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-Rhode Island, said he believes the President’s budget request recognizes the precarious state of the Medicare system, as well as other challenges faced by the nation’s seniors.

“The president has acknowledged the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit as well as [the need] for a significant increase in funding for disease research conducted by the National Institutes of Health,” he said.

While Chafee said he will push for legislation that will create more comprehensive Medicare prescription drug benefits than the legislation proposed by the president, he warned the deficit created by the combination of the economic slowdown, the war on terrorism and last year’s tax cut will make enactment of any new spending programs more difficult to accomplish.

Meanwhile, programs under the Older Americans Act, are provided with less funding in Bush’s budget proposal than they were last year.

“Around the country, people are on waiting lists for meals-on-wheels programs and congregate meals programs,” said McSteen.

“There are state and local programs that need additional federal funds to counter the increasing problems of elder abuse. The administration’s funding request for these programs is woefully inadequate.”

Other federal programs get sliced and diced under the Bush administration’s FY 2003 budget, according to U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-Rhode Island, who pointed to an 8 percent cut for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s budget for chronic care.

The four-term Congressman and member of the House Aging Caucus said he finds this cut troubling due to the significant gains that have been made in efforts to prevent and treat diseases that effect an aging population.

With a growing number of families caring or loved ones with Alzheimer’s Disease, Kennedy said he strongly opposes the Bush administration’s axing of the Missing Alzheimer’s Disease Patient Alert Program, which helps protect and locate missing patients with the devastating disease.

The program has assisted in the return of more that 5,700 wanderers and increased its data base to 67,000 persons with Alzheimer’s,” said Kennedy. “It has succeeded in its many efforts on a budget of $ 898,000 in fiscal year 2002.”

While prescription drugs comes up a loser in the Bush budget, some aging initiatives are clearly on the White House’s radar screen.

Bush’s budget proposal provides about $ 3 billion in additional funds toward research and is the final installment in a five-year effort to double the size of the National Institute of Health budget, says McSteen. She said she believes increased federal funding would assist in “producing breakthroughs in the prevention, treatment, management of conditions associated with aging.”

The Administration’s budget also provides a personal exemption to home caretakers of family members and the funding of respite and direct care worker demonstration projects.

Now Bush’s Budget proposal moves to Congress, where a Republican-controlled House and Democratic Senate will make major revisions, ultimately hammering out a final road map to federal spending.

The funding of federal programs to meet the needs of older Americans is crucial as our nation’s population ages.

Furthermore, with an increasing federal budget deficit, Republican and Democratic lawmakers must not get tied down to partisan wrangling as they attempt to iron out differences in creating a Medicare benefit to make prescription rugs more affordable to seniors.

As the Congressional elections get closer, seniors will call for concrete legislative action, not political rhetoric or fancy words.