The Older Americans Act (OAA) is the backbone of services to America’s aging population. First enacted in 1965, the OAA helps seniors stay independent and healthy through a wide range of services and programs including: Meals-on-Wheels, congregate meals, caregiver support, senior center services, transportation, protection against elder abuse, support for family caregivers, home and community services, health promotion, disease prevention, community service employment for low-income older workers, and grant programs for Native Americans.

With strong support from the Minnesota Senior Federation, in collaboration with the National Council on Aging, Congress reauthorized the OAA in the fall of 2006, strengthening it in numerous ways and adding important new initiatives.  While reauthorization provides an opportunity to improve and expand the law, it does not provide any additional funding.  OAA spending levels, like those of most government programs, are set by Congress for each fiscal year through the appropriations process. OAA money is included in a large annual appropriations bill called the Labor-Health and Human Service-Education bill. We need to urge Congress to increase the OAA appropriations by 10 percent in fiscal year 2008.

Following are descriptions of key OAA programs, which receive more than 92 percent of total OAA dollars each year:

Supportive Services (Title III-B) - Provides services that enable older persons to remain in their own homes and age in place, rather than enter institutions.  The most frequently provided services are home health, personal care and transportation. 

Nutrition Services (Title III-C) - Provides congregate and home-delivered meals, increasing the health, functionality and quality-of-life for millions of seniors.  Approximately 40 percent of home-delivered meal providers have waiting lists.

National Family Caregiver Support Program (Title III-E) - Established by Congress in 2000 to help ease the burdens of caregivers through respite care, counseling and supplemental services. More than one-fifth of all households nationally are caring for someone 50 years old or more.

Senior Community Service Employment Program (Title V) - Provides part-time employment and training for low-income workers, helping to lift them out of poverty and restore their sense of self-worth. SCSEP also strengthens communities through community service job placements.

In addition, the 2006 reauthorization added valuable new features to OAA including: creation of a National Center on Senior Benefits Outreach and Enrollment, major expansion of evidence-based health promotion and disease prevention, and civic engagement provisions to enable seniors to make important contributions to their communities. Each of these initiatives is waiting start-up funding.

OAA funding was basically frozen from FY02 to FY05, and then reduced by 1 percent in FY06 in the government-wide, across-the-board cut. Keeping funding flat year after year has caused a serious erosion in purchasing power due to inflation and has diminished the reach of the programs due to the growing numbers of seniors in need. It is clear that $1.8 billion can not go as far today as it did in 2002.

In FY07 Congress increased OAA slightly. These are the changes made from FY06 to FY07:

• added $20 million in nutrition services - a welcome increase but only a drop in the bucket compared to the need;
• kept other spending levels for the Administration on Aging the same as FY06; and
• included an adjustment of $51.3 million for SCSEP, to cover the expected increase in the federal minimum wage; this money will not expand the number of program slots, but will merely provide sufficient funds to continue paying enrollees at the higher minimum wage level.

In view of the above, we need to urge Congress to:

• increase funding for all existing OAA programs by 10 percent (about $180 million) in FY08; and
• provide sufficient start-up funding for all new program initiatives in the 2006 OAA reauthorization.

Spending money on OAA programs saves taxpayers’ dollars in the long run, because it cuts Medicaid and Medicare expenditures by reducing premature nursing home placements, averting malnutrition and controlling chronic health conditions.

If funding since FY02 had simply kept pace with inflation and the increasing number of seniors, it would be more than $400 million higher in FY07, not even counting the greater need for services.

With flat funding, service providers are constantly faced with difficult choices about which services to cut. Rising gas prices have hit programs like Meals-on-Wheels hard.

Strengthening the OAA was the top priority of the delegates to the once-per-decade 2005 White House Conference on Aging. It would be an irony and a disappointment if Congress failed to provide increased funding for the No. 1 priority of those bipartisan delegates.

Contact Minnesota’s Congressional Delegation (see page 2) to urge them to increase funding for all existing OAA programs by 10 percent in FY08; and provide sufficient start-up funding for all new program initiatives in the 2006 OAA reauthorization.