This past July 13th the White House convened its sixth Conference on Aging. The meeting's purpose is to identify elder care needs over the next 10 years. More specifically the meeting is, or is typically, held to discuss improvements to the Older Americans Act (OAA). The OAA was signed into law in 1965 by President Johnson and has historically enjoyed Congressional support having been amended over ten times. This Conference, the 6th, however was held despite the fact the Congress has failed to reauthorize the OAA over the past four years. The OAA expired in 2011 though the Congress has appropriated funding since then to continue to fund OAA programming. Among other purposes the OAA established the federal Administration on Aging and provides moneys to state agencies on aging that in turn fund health care services including nutritional programming, social service support programs (termed Long Term Services and Supports) and employment and legal protection programs.
During this 21 minute discussion Ms. Montgomery discusses what issues President Obama discussed during the meeting, other or additional meeting discussion topics, what was not or insufficiently discussed, the future/near future health and social service support needs for this country's rapidly growing senior (and frail elderly) population (10,000 Americans age into Medicare every day) and what are the prospects for Congressional renewal (with adequate funding) of the OAA this fall or going into the 2nd session of Congress in 2016.
Anne Montgomery is a Senior Policy Analyst at Altarum Institute’s Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness and is a Visiting Scholar at the National Academy of Social Insurance. From 2007 to 2013, Ms. Montgomery served as Senior Policy Adviser for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. She has also served as a Senior Health Policy Associate with the Alliance for Health Reform in Washington, as a Senior Analyst in public health at the U.S. Government Accountability Office and as a Legislative Aide for the House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee. As an Atlantic Fellow in Public Policy based London in the early 2001-2002, Ms. Montgomery undertook comparative policy analysis of the role of family caregivers in the development of long-term care in the United Kingdom and the United States. During the 1990s, she worked as a health and science journalist covering the National Institutes of Health and Congress. Ms. Montgomery earned her MS at Columbia and her BA at the University of Virginia.
For information about the Altarum's Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness go to: http://altarum.org/research-centers/center-for-elder-care-and-advanced-illness
The White House's July Conference on Aging: A Conversation with Anne Montgomery (August 18th)