News
New Policy Tools Coming Soon!
- By: USAging
- On: 02/01/2019 17:14:25
- In: Policy & Advocacy
n4a's Associate members receive our Advocacy Alerts whenever there's an opportunity to take action on behalf of older adults and caregivers, and you also have access to other n4a materials to help deepen your understanding of federal policy and become an effective advocate!
With the new Congress settling in, we're working on a template letter that you can send to your Members of Congress (especially new ones) to educate them about our aging America. We will have a policy brief you can share with them, too—designed just for policymakers and their staff and focused on aging at home and in the community.
In March, we will release our annual Policy Priorities, which will offer you and policymakers background information and n4a's recommendations on a host of aging issues, including Older Americans Act reauthorization, federal funding for local aging services, Medicare, Medicaid home and community-based services, and more. We will mail you a hard copy, but the Priorities will also be available online (as last year's were).
And in just a few weeks, we will release our recommendations for the Older Americans Act, as the 116th Congress is slated to take that up this year. The Act expires on September 30, 2019, although funding will continue to flow as long as the spending committees (appropriators) do their jobs. But reauthorization is led by a different set of committees in the House and Senate and offers Congress a chance to change the Act's authority, rules and other details. Our OAA reauthorization tool kit will help you follow the process, get involved, advocate and recruit others to the charge in your community, so watch for that later this spring.
Since we periodically send letters to Congress or the Administration, you may find updates on our policy news page. For example, here's what we sent HHS Secretary Alex Azar this month on proposed objectives for Healthy People 2030.