Kathy Greenlee, Assistant Secretary for Aging, HHS

Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary on Aging Kathy Greenlee released a statement on July 14 to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Older Americans Act (OAA), which Congress is expected to consider for reauthorization in 2011.

Greenlee notes that the number of Americans age 60 and over have more than doubled since President Lyndon Johnson signed the OAA into law in 1965.

She forecasts that “reliance on family members, who currently provide 80 percent of the long-term care assistance for our nation’s seniors, will increase,” since people age 80 and over are the fastest-growing age group and will need long-term care.

Greenlee also calls the Affordable Care Act (ACA) an opportunity “to harness the successes and progress of the last four decades to further improve the health and lives of older Americans and support their caregivers.”

PHI OAA Recommendations

PHI has made several recommendations (pdf) to the Administration on Aging (AoA) on the 2011 reauthorization of the OAA, including:

• improving training and employment for direct-care workers;
• incorporating workforce planning and assessment in the aging services network; and
• building infrastructure for self-directed services by strengthening matching service registries.

This year, PHI has been in conversation with AoA staff and advocates on how the reauthorization of the OAA could be the opportunity to advance matching-service registries, which facilitate connections between consumers who receive self-directed care in their homes and the independent direct-care workers who provide that care.

Greenlee said the OAA, in combination with the creation of Medicare and Medicaid just about two weeks later and Social Security in 1935, “have served as the foundation for economic, health, and social support for millions of seniors, individuals with disabilities and their families.”

– by Deane Beebe