The Honorable Rodney Davis

February 21, 2018

The Honorable Rodney Davis

U.S. House of Representatives – 13th Congressional District

1740 Longworth House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative Davis:

On behalf of East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging (ECIAAA) in Bloomington, IL, we are writing in response to the recent passage of a six-week bipartisan budget deal to lift the discretionary budget caps, which have unnecessarily restricted funding to critical aging programs and services.

With this relief now available, we urge you to ensure that the final FY 2018 spending bills include adequate resources for the Older Americans Act (OAA) and several other programs that help older adults live with dignity and independence in their homes and communities for as long as possible.

Specifically, we urge you to adopt a funding bill compromise that reflects the House-passed increase for OAA Title III B Supportive Services and adopts the Senate-proposed levels for essential Medicare counseling services. Funding for these services is critical to the health and independence of millions of older adults and caregivers, including 20,000 of the older adults and caregivers that ECIAAA serves locally.

We hope you support the following requests as a final FY 2018 funding bill moves forward, and will reach out to your House colleagues who are working toward a final funding compromise:

• Maintain the House-passed $14.2 million increase for OAA Title III B Supportive Services and pass a final funding level for Title III B of $364.2 million.
• Adopt the Senate-proposed level for the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) ($47.1 million) which was subject to cuts or elimination in the House-passed funding bill.
• Work to incorporate additional increases for OAA programs to, at a minimum, meet the funding levels included in the unanimously approved 2016 Older Americans Act reauthorization bill.

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At ECIAAA, we are committed to ensuring that every year over 20,000 older adults and caregivers in East Central Illinois —many who are your constituents—are supported as they age with dignity, independence and health in their homes and communities. As you know, these critical federal programs help older adults live independently at home and in the community, get one-on-one help understanding their Medicare and other benefits, find jobs to make ends meet, and avoid abuse and exploitation.

For example, OAA Title III B Coordinated Points of Entry/Senior Information Services programs in our area helped 1,700 older adults enroll in the right Medicare Part D plan that saved the enrollees a total of $3 million dollars. That $3 million in cost savings allowed these 1,700 Medicare beneficiaries to use that money to help pay for other necessities such as groceries, utilities and home repairs. The House-passed increase for III B represents the first such increase for these programs in nearly a decade, and we hope you will express your support for funding III B at the full House-passed level of $364.4 million in a final funding bill. More information about how OAA Title III B Supportive Services programs help older adults and caregivers across the country is available in this brief one-pager from the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging.

In addition, the training received through the SHIP program is extremely helpful when dealing with Medicare counseling issues. We hope you will encourage your colleagues to adopt, at a minimum, the Senate-proposed funding level of $47.1 million for SHIP programs in the final funding bill.

In the four years of the Trump Administration, nearly 15 million people will turn age 65. By 2030, 73 million—or one in five—people in America will be 65 or older.With more Americans living longer, we should be investing in key Older Americans Act and other aging programs that keep seniors healthy and independent in their homes and communities, not cutting them!

As Congress finalizes the funding bills for FY 2018, it is essential that lawmakers recognize and make wise federal investments in programs that keep older adults in their homes and communities and that support caregivers. In the interest of the older adults who we serve and who you represent in the 13th Congressional District of Illinois, we hope you will support—and urge your colleagues to support—these key requests for critical OAA and other aging programs.

Please feel free to reach out anytime on these or any aging issues of importance to you and your constituents.

Sincerely,

Susan C. Real

Susan C. Real

Executive Director

East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging, Inc.

Cell phone: 309-533-3232

Email:

Counties Served: Champaign, Clark, Coles, Cumberland, DeWitt, Douglas, Edgar, Ford, Iroquois, Livingston, Macon, McLean, Moultrie, Piatt, Shelby, Vermilion

The East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging does not discriminate in admission to programs or treatment of employment in programs or activities in compliance with appropriate State and Federal Statutes. If you feel you have been discriminated against, you have a right to file a complaint with the Illinois Department on Aging. For information, call the IDoA Senior HelpLine 1-800-252-8966 (Voice and TTY), or contact the Area Agency's Civil Rights Coordinator at 1-800-888-4456.

Funded by Older Americans Act and General Revenue through the Illinois Department on Aging