Tag Archives for Older Americans Month

A Storm Cloud Looms Over Older Americans Month

Published in Woonsocket Call on May 13, 2018

Two years after President John F. Kennedy had formally designated May as “Senior Citizens Month” at a meeting of the National Council of Senior Citizens in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Older Americans Act into law, formally declaring May as Older Americans Month. When Kennedy first proclaimed May as Older American’s Month, there were just 17 million Americans who had reached age 65. According to the recently released 2017 Profile of Older Americans, one in seven Americans are 65 or older, and just two years from now, this this demographic group’s numbers will skyrocket to 56 million people.

Nothing but Empty Words

Since Kennedy’s inaugural proclamation, all presidents have proclaimed the month of May as Older American’s Month. Not surprisingly President Donald J. Trump recently proclaimed May as Older Americans Month, too, calling upon “all Americans to honor our elders, acknowledge their contributions, care for those in need, and reaffirm our country’s commitment to older Americans this month and throughout the year.”

Trump even touted his Administration’s priorities on fighting on the behalf of the nation’s older Americans. “The Department of Justice, for example, is focused on protecting seniors from fraud and abuse. My Administration is also committed to protecting the Social Security system so that seniors who have contributed to the system can receive benefits from it. We are also dedicated to improving healthcare, including by increasing the quality of care our veterans receive through the Department of Veterans Affairs and by lowering prescription drug prices for millions of Americans.”

But do Trump’s words in his April 30th resolution to proclaim May as Older Americans Month, match his past political actions. Not so.

Just almost three months ago the President released his 2019 budget and this fiscal blueprint did not show a commitment to aging programs and services.

Draconian Cuts in 2019 Trump Budget

Although Trump’s 2019 budget proposal was “Dead on Arrival” on Capitol Hill, as reported in my February 18, 2018 Commentary, his budgetary wish list of cuts would have been devastating to many programs and services for older Americans, as detailed by a policy analysis performed by the Washington, DC.-based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM).

Trump’s budget included $1.4 trillion in Medicaid cuts, $490 billion in Medicare cuts, and repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Breaking his campaign promise not to touch Social Security, Trump called for steep cuts up to $64 billion from the Social Security Disability Insurance program.

Trump’s budget proposal also called for over $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, many of these savings coming from cuts to Medicare providers and suppliers. This was another campaign promise broken.

Trump’s budget cuts would have drastically impacted Medicare’s spending on prescription benefits and beneficiary costs, too. It would save $210 million over 10 years by eliminating the cost-sharing on generic drugs for low-income beneficiaries.

Not surprisingly, Medicaid was not immune to Trump’s 2019 budget cuts. He called for changing the structure of the program into either a per capita cap or Medicaid block grant, with a goal of giving states more flexibility of managing their programs. Through 2028, the president’s budget would cut $1.4 trillion from the Medicaid program through repealing the Affordable Care Act, and restructuring the program.

Trump’s budget proposal also calls for the elimination of the Older Americans Act Title V Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). The program, funded at $400 million in FY 2017. provides job training to nearly 70,000 low-income older adults each year.

Community Services Block Grants ($715 million), the Community Development Block
Grant ($3 billion) and the Social Services Block Grant ($1.7 billion) programs were also targeted to be eliminated. Some Meals on Wheels programs rely on funding from these federal programs, in addition to OAA funding, to deliver nutritious meals to at-risk seniors.

Trump also called for the elimination of funding to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, cutting assistance for heating and fuel costs to low income seniors. It would have also eliminated funding for The Senior Corps programs including the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Foster Grandparents and Senior Companions. These programs enable seniors to remain active and engaged in their communities, serving neighbors of all ages, with the benefit of enhancing their health and wellbeing.

Finally, research into cancer, Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s and other diseases affecting older persons would be negatively impacted with $ 46 million in funding cuts to National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

Also reported in my December 10, 2018 Commentary, Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress successfully passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, that was projected to add $1.5 billion to the nation’s deficit over the next decade. Under the 2010 “pay-as-you-go” law, that triggers automatic spending cuts to domestic programs when the nation’s deficit increases, the GOP’s sweeping tax plan (that Trump strongly supported) would have triggered automatic spending cuts to federal programs, including a $25 billion cut to Medicare in 2018 alone. But vigorous lobbying by AARP and NCPSSM, along with a long-list of other aging, health care and union groups, narrowly averted the draconian cuts by convincing the House and the Senate to waive them as part of a temporary spending bill to prevent a government shutdown.

Strengthening Federal Assistance to Seniors

When President Johnson signed the Older Americans Act into law on July 14, 1965, to raise the awareness of the problems facing seniors and to honor them, he formally proclaimed the month of May as Older Americans Month.

This year’s Older Americans Month is celebrated in every community across the nation as Medicare, Medicaid and Older Americans Act programs are under fierce legislative attack by President Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress.

With the 2018 mid-term elections just six months away, older voters can send a message to Capitol Hill – Strengthen Social Security, Medicare, and the Older Americans Act, expand Medicaid, and bring back health insurance to millions of Americans who lost their coverage because of the Republican tax plan that repealed key provisions of Obamacare.

With a Democratic-controlled Congress, next year’s theme for the Older Americans Month, might be “Strengthening Federal Assistance to Seniors.”

100 and Still Counting

Published in Senator Digest on May 2006.

The State Department of Elderly Affairs (DEA) is honoring centenarians and their contributions to society in May in observation of Older Americans Month.

“When you stop and think about the thousands of years of living history that centenarians represent, we begin to realize that their experience and wisdom are gifts to be treasured,” Corinne Calise Russo, the DEA  Director told Senior Digest.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the 2000 population count found 1,048,319 persons residing in the Ocean State. The data also revealed that 75,718 of those residents were age 75 and over. But, for those reaching age 100 and over, the number literally falls in the hundreds, a demographic milestone few will reach.

For the past 29 years, the DEA has been charged with organizing the annual Governor’s Centenarians Brunch, an event to celebrate people who have lived to be age 100. Over the year, the DEA’s brunch for the state’s oldest old has become the centerpiece of the agency’s celebration of May as Older Americans Month, says Russo.

In the early years, the Governor’s Centenarians Brunch was held in the State Room at the Statehouse.  In later years, the brunch was moved to community-based locations because of the climbing number of centenarians who were able to attend.

Six times, one of the oldest-know Rhode Islanders, Sam Goldberg, 106, has attended the Governor’s Centenarians’ Brunch with his elder peers, all who either reached age 100 that year or who have lived over a century.  Last year DEA organizers had located and invited 250 Rhode Islanders age 100 and over.  Only 50 attended the brunch. They expected the attendance for this year’s even to be around 60.

Goldberg, a resident of Village of Waterman Lake, Greenville, was born in 1900 in Lodz, Poland. Like many people at that time, his father came to the United States first to work to support his family.  Later, in 1907, Goldberg, his mother, two brothers and two sisters would come over and live, reuniting with their father.

During 1916, Goldberg worked in Hartford, Conn., at a company making ball bearings, for automobiles.

With the outbreak of World War 1, a recruiter in Atlanta signed him up in the United States Calvary. Little did the recruiter know that Goldberg would be one of the few remaining World War I veterans alive in 2006.

Goldberg was not destined to see battle oversee. He would be stationed in San Antonio, Texas, assigned to “guard the boarders against the bad guys.”  During his 17 months in the Army, he would also patrol the 40-mile boarder in Hachita and Columbus, New Mexico. “It was like police work,” remembered Goldberg.

After the Army stint, Goldberg returned to civilian life, working at Willy’s Overland Cars in New York. In 1922, he relocated to work at the company’s Providence dealership.  He moved to the city’s Elmwood neighborhood.  Goldberg has lied in the Ocean State for 84 years, was married for 76 years and raised three children.  He worked all of his life in the car business and said he became a partner at Hurd, a Cranston-based auto dealership, retiring at age 70.

While many people remember the destruction brought about by the Hurricane of 1938, it brought in lots of business in Goldberg’s Chrysler car dealership located on Reservoir Avenue in Cranston. “It increased our business because insurance companies paid to fix cars damaged by the storm,” he said.

Goldberg also remembered the days when Providence was populated with a large number of jewelry companies with thousands of workers.

“You had industry here. You have nothing like that now,” he says.

Why are more people living past age 100?

According to the New England Centenarian Study at the Boston University Medical School, centenarians are the fastest growing segment of our population. The second fastest growing segment is people age 85 and over.

The study started in 1994 has generated data that sheds light on the nation’s oldest old.  The BU Medical School’s website noted that centenarians have many characteristics in common.  Few centenarians are obese, and men and nearly always lean. Those individuals were never heavy smokers, and they could handle stress better than most.

Meanwhile, the study found that women centenarians had a history of bearing children after the age of 35 and even 40.  Researchers say that it is probably not the act of bearing a child in one’s 40s that promotes long life, but doing so may be an indicator that the woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly and that the rest of her body is as well.

The study also found at least 50 percent of the centenarians have first-degree relatives and/or grandparents who also achieved very old age, and many have exceptionally old siblings.  The data indicates that many of the centenarians’ children between age 65 and 82 appear to be following in their parents’ footsteps with marked delays in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and overall mortality.

DEA Director Russo says,” Each year (at the Governor’s Centenarians’ Brunch) we ask centenarians that age-old question,” What is the secrete to your longevity?” Their answers are varied as the personalities involved, but they all contain basic themes.  Stay active and alert.  Stay connected to family, friends and the world around you.  And most of all be grateful for each day and the joy it brings.

Goldberg seems to fit many of the predictors for living over age 100 that have been identified by the New England Centenarian Study. He is lean and never was obese. He never smoked either. But when questioned about his longevity, he laughed and said,” I keep breathing. You take in air.” Maybe his longevity is tied to a good sense of humor, too.