The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee took the next step Wednesday in reauthorizing the expiring Older Americans Act, sending the $15 billion measure to the full Senate.
The bill would increase funding for investigating abuse and poor services at long-term care facilities and includes enhanced measures for caregivers, alongside money for items such as senior centers and the Meals On Wheels program.
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The bill, which would go into effect in fiscal 2025, spans five years and represents an increase of more than 40% compared with existing funding.
HELP Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) this spring sought more money for covered programs through the bill, for which he is lead sponsor.
Still, Sanders hailed the bipartisan compromise.
"This legislation begins to pay attention to the urgent unmet needs of millions of seniors in our country, and what we should do as a society to reduce the senior poverty rate, to reduce senior hunger, and to improve the health and well being of some of the most vulnerable people in our nation," Sanders said before Wednesday's committee vote.
Sanders also pitched the bill, which passed nearly unanimously, as a way to slow healthcare spending.
"It costs less to feed a senior for an entire year through the Older Americans Act than it does for a senior to spend one night in a hospital," Sanders said.
While the bill is not focused on the growing move to hospital-at-home care, it does include new provisions likely to increase the odds that ailing Americans remain outside of facilities longer, such as measures to offer medically tailored meals and certain home modifications. It would also boost existing programs to provide respite and other aid for caregivers, and establish a national resource center to help professionalize the direct-care workforce and provide training for family caregivers.
There are also expanded provisions for preventive care that add heart and respiratory screening to items that can be funded under the Older Americans Act, as well as specifying that offering information on infectious diseases is allowed.
Also included is about $140 million over five years to fund ombudsman programs focused on long-term care around the country, including money to train paralegals and volunteers to look into nursing home abuses and other eldercare failures.
"The bill strengthens the aging network by improving program integrity and transparency, supporting the development of state and local capabilities, and encouraging innovation and flexibility within OAA programs," said ranking committee Republican Dr. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
Although there is no companion measure in the House, the other chamber is not expected to oppose reauthorization of the Older Americans Act. It remains unclear how the House intends to deal with the measure or what funding levels it would target, but leaders on both sides of the aisle have raised the idea of passing a large healthcare package in the fall.
At a minimum, such a measure would include what are known as "extenders" to renew a string of expiring programs such as those in the Older Americans Act. It would also likely contain funding to forestall cuts to safety-net hospitals and physician pay rate cuts in Medicare scheduled to take effect in 2025.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) reaffirmed that likelihood to reporters Tuesday.
"There's going to be, I think at the end of the year, probably something done on healthcare and an extenders package of some sort," Thune said
