Jason Maciejewski (00:00):
Welcome to Inside The Senior Alliance, a podcast exploring resources and issues in the field of aging. I’m Jason Maciejewski CEO at The Senior Alliance, the Area Agency on Aging, serving Western Wayne County and the downriver area. Joining me today is Amy Gotwals, Chief of Public Policy and External Affairs at US Aging. Amy, thank you for joining me today.
Amy Gotwals (00:17):
My pleasure, Jason. Glad to be back on your podcast.
Jason Maciejewski (00:20):
Great to have you back again. I think this is an annual event for us now, having you join us to talk about what’s going on in Washington DC in the federal process. And I think the most immediate thing that we have been dealing with has been the federal budget for fiscal year 25. The budget has been, I think, set now with a continuing resolution for the rest of the year, not really what a traditional budget would look like, but could you tell us specifically what Congress and the White House has done with the fiscal year 25 budget and how you saw that playing out?
Amy Gotwals (00:53):
Sure Jason, it sounds like you already have a pretty good handle on it. Just last week, the House on Tuesday passed and the Senate on Friday passed a continuing resolution for the rest of the fiscal year. So that’s through September 30th, and that sets the levels for about not quite a third, really about 30% of the federal budget. That’s, it. Doesn’t affect the entire federal budget, but it effects the discretionary programs that are appropriated every single year by Congress. Now, a continuing resolution is a little different than, as you said, a traditional spending bill in that it’s not one of many separate bills making appropriations for the different agencies across the federal government that receive this type of discretionary spending. It really says, let’s not have a shutdown. Let’s keep the funding flowing at last year’s rates. It’s intended as a stopgap measure when Congress can’t meet its own deadline to finish these spending bills, and they need to buy a little time.
Amy Gotwals (01:49):
Sometimes there is shortest days, often a few weeks to a few months in order for them to have more time to finish up their federal appropriations process. In this case, they kind of gave up on getting those bills done. They walked away Democrats blaming Republicans, Republicans blaming Democrats. They could not get to an agreement on actual full spending bills for the second half of this fiscal year. That’s how late they were, six months into the year. They have just lived by these continuing resolutions or CRs, as we call them, here in DC and did not finish up the bills. There’s certainly incentive for Republicans to move on from this fiscal year. We can talk more about what they’ve got on tap for fiscal year 26. They have big dreams and plans along with the President, but they were ready to be done with this, and so this is basically a stopgap for the rest of the year, and it keeps the funding flowing.
Amy Gotwals (02:42):
What was interesting this time is they did make some changes. They increased some spending, decreased other spending. When traditionally you try to avoid that in a CR so that you can actually get enough folks to move it through, it’s an agreement to keep the last fiscal year still going. In this case, this is what’s been coined by some as a dirty CR and that there are changes in there that maybe weren’t as supported by all, which is why you saw only so many Democrats in the Senate actually voting for this and all but one voting against it in the House. So it really is largely a Republican CR, if you will, because of those changes. Hopefully it’ll still work like all previous CRs and what Congress did in 2024, the President and White House, essentially, the administration will honor and continue on until there’s a different spending bill that comes along.
Amy Gotwals (03:32):
However, we’ve got to point out that this administration has shown it’s willing to break with what Congress told it to spend the X dollar or Y dollar on. They’ve already done that through the DOGE cost cutting and waste efforts that they’re doing as well as just in other cases, scrutinizing the outflow of federal funding to a lot of these programs across the federal government. So it’s no longer the guarantee it used to be. So there is some stability for programs we care about right now, like Older Americans Act, funding for state health insurance assistance programs and just so many other programs that end up supporting older adults who age well at home and in the community, and we can, we are hoping we can trust that those programs will continue to be implemented smoothly by the administration. But there are a lot of question marks around this, given President Trump’s interest in doing things more than a little differently, including differently from his first term. So a lot of question marks around the CR, but we’re certainly glad that a shutdown was avoided because that certainly wouldn’t be good for older adults and caregivers who rely on key programs like the Older Americans Act.
Jason Maciejewski (04:42):
Yeah, really important for us at The Senior Alliance that we didn’t have a shutdown and we’re able to continue operating normally. How did aging programs fare in this CR? Are things pretty consistent with what they were last year? Are there any changes that we can be looking towards?
Amy Gotwals (05:01):
Congress did something it doesn’t usually do, and again, this is at the director of ship of the Republicans in Congress. I should just note they’re in majority and House and Senate, and so this is really their language. It’s something Democrats largely opposed. They didn’t refer to the report language of the previous bill. They referred to the previous bill, which allows the government to stay open, but they did something very unusual and they said to the administration, here it is. Here’s the stopgap funding bill. It runs until the end of the fiscal year, but in 45 days, please get back to us with your spending plan. Well, that is not normally what’s done. It’s Congress’s job to give the administration their spending plan, allowing them some pots of money that are flexible, where the administration can pick things and focus on things that are the priorities of the President.
Amy Gotwals (05:44):
But large majority of the appropriated funding every year is spoken for, if you will. It tells the administration, here’s what we want you to spend it on. And so some of us as advocates are a little worried that this is a little squishy and it’s unclear and we’re going to have to wait. We’ll have to wait and see if the Trump administration, uses this opportunity as a way to further carry out the President’s goal of in his mind, you know, reducing government spending. The Republicans and Congress may have given him just a new opening, but it really remains to be seen. It may be not that bold and dramatic. It may be more like how it would normally work, but it’s just different enough that little splash of dirty that we’re not quite sure how that will play out. So to be honest with you, we’re working on the assumption because funding is continued, that all aging programs continue on as is.
Amy Gotwals (06:35):
There weren’t cuts to the programs we track most closely or they would’ve been written into the bill. So it’s a little bit of a, we can keep breathing <laugh>, but we also have to keep watching this and see where we are in 45 or so days because I don’t feel the usual safety once an appropriations bill is passed, there is a window here that could create a problem. And that’s true across all appropriations, obviously your questions to programs supporting community living and aging and support for caregivers in the community. But this is true of everything. We’re certainly in no way being singled out. It was true across the entire continuing resolution.
Jason Maciejewski (07:13):
This is certainly a different kind of budget process than we’ve been used to. And the ideas of impoundment, which many people thought were resolved back in the early seventies with the Nixon administration coming back and really is important for people who want to advocate on behalf of older adults and aging issues, really a critical time for them just to call their members of Congress and relay what they’re thinking, what’s important to them as a caregiver or an older adult. And that’s what we’ve been telling people here locally in southeast Michigan is, if you have an opinion on this stuff, make sure you’re reaching out to your member of Congress. Speaking about members of Congress, you know, there are key people in this appropriations process in DC. Could you maybe highlight a few of those names so our audience could be familiar with who the players might be.
Amy Gotwals (08:01):
On the appropriation side of it. Again, that’s only about 30% the entire federal budget, yet when we talk about, oh, threat of a shutdown or did they pass a budget, people tend to think it’s everything, but it really is just about 30% of very specifically allocated pots of money that Congress determines every year. And the committees, there are 12 committees in the house and 12 in the Senate. There’re subcommittees to an appropriations committee. Thankfully they’re identical. They align chamber to chamber, and so then there’s chairman and for each and every, and a ranking member, meaning the minority party gets sort of their lead person, but they’re not as powerful as the chairman or chairwoman. And so those committees are the ones that get down to the nitty gritty and they decide how much you’re going to put into congregate meals versus home delivered, how much you’re going to put into Older Americans Act, caregiver services, et cetera.
Amy Gotwals (08:51):
This year, those folks in the House are Congressman Tom Cole, Republican from Oklahoma, and he’s been an appropriator for a good long time, has been, honestly rather good in helping protect Title VI Native American Aging Programs over the decades that he’s been in Congress and I’ve been advocating on these issues. So he is in a leadership role across the house Republicans on appropriations, and his counterpart is a longstanding congresswoman from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro over in the Senate. It’s two women who lead that panel. Senator Susan Collins, republican of Maine is the chairwoman. And then Patty Murray, a democrat from Washington State, is the ranking member on that committee, both with extensive experience in crafting these appropriations bills. Basically, these folks all kind of got cut out of what happened last week because they were still working on coming together with a spending bill, but ultimately leadership of the Republican party in both chambers decided, nope, let’s just CR it, let’s move on and let’s get this done. They didn’t think that they could get to consensus with Democrats, and so they really put Democrats in quite the awkward corner, particularly in the Senate in just being able to move it through. But these folks start all over who I just listed. We call that the four corners in DC, the chair and ranking on each chamber for a total of four important leaders. And they will start on FY 2026 bills in the coming months. So they don’t get much of a breather, nor do we as advocates.
Jason Maciejewski (10:20):
So when we think about the aging population, what do you see as the long-term fiscal challenges that are associated with older adults and caregivers?
Amy Gotwals (10:29):
We haven’t prepared. We had an inherent fiscal challenge. Soon as those boomers were <laugh> we’re booming, <laugh>, the writing’s been on the wall for a long time, and Congress, as you see in them halfway through a fiscal year, finally finishing up and not even quite actually finishing up their bills, they do things by crisis. They are not good at that planning ahead. The aging network and others involved in demographics and the change in the population and in issues important to the aging of our country have been warning them now for decades that this is coming. I’m not characterizing this in a negative way, it’s just a reality and it’s a good thing. More people are able to age well, but we’ve got more people aging everywhere in our country, and that trend isn’t going to stop for a good long while. And so that’s a reality.
Amy Gotwals (11:19):
We’ve seen it coming, we knew it might happen and people are living longer. So your aging population becomes that much more diverse as far as 65 to people living of course well into their nineties. And, and then a smaller number of course of centenarians. But the largest, fastest growing demographic group I believe I have this right, it was true last year, are people in their eighties. And so we’ve got a tremendous demographic shift in our country that we have not come to grips with. Now, how does this play out regards the federal budget? Well, social security, now I’m going to quote from data that is from a nonpartisan source, the Congressional Budget Office, which crunches all these numbers for Congress so they can have facts they agree on, on what is coming what Congress has spent and what the administration has spent. And in 2023, 23% of outlays meaning funding going out of the government.
Amy Gotwals (12:08):
So that part of the budget is to Social Security, Medicare, 14% Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and supporting Affordable Care Act is 12%. And then there’s a bunch of other programs that fall into that. None of those programs are in the 30% that I mentioned of discretionary funding. Instead, you have 63% of the federal budget in this category of mandatory spending. That’s Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the few others that I mentioned. That means that Congress doesn’t touch those every year they put the rules in place, they set the spending, well, they set the rules of eligibility and whatnot, then the spending continues in response to whatever those rules are. So for example, you set up the eligibility for Medicaid. Of course there’s lots of negotiating with states on some of the nuances of state programs since that’s a federal state program. But by and large, if more people got on Medicaid in a given year, the federal governments costs go up.
Amy Gotwals (13:04):
Congress doesn’t sign off on that every year the way they do for Older Americans Act. How much do we want to spend on evidence-based health and wellness programs in the Older Americans Act versus how much do we want to give to senior care or something like that. So they’re two different buckets, and if you’ve been following my numbers, but I will repeat them, only 30% is the pot that Congress decides every year, the 63% of mandatory spending, they do not touch every year and then 7 to 8%, these are all rounded up numbers is net interest on the debt. So what you have here is you have two of your largest, your two largest mandatory programs. And we in Aging Network also know that with Medicaid included as the next pot of funding and the importance of Medicaid long-term care to so many older adults and people with disabilities we’re really looking at a very significant portion of the budget more than all of the discretionary funding is going to the key most critical programs that support older adults in our country to be able to age well with financial security and with health security.
Amy Gotwals (14:09):
So that is going to have an impact. We can’t deny that. We haven’t fully prepared for that. Certainly many attempts to ensure that those programs are functioning well and efficiently and free of waste, fraud and abuse. That’s all happening. It’s not a criticism in any way of the programs or the fact that people earned these benefits by paying into these systems all along. I want to be really clear and not upset anyone who thinks that I’m saying these are problem programs. They’re absolutely not, but they are very affected by this aging of the population as well as many other parts of the federal budget because it’s also affected by communities. If you have more people who are no longer working, what does that impact on a community? What does that do to our workforce? Et cetera, et cetera. So we have not prepared for this.
Amy Gotwals (14:53):
And so one of the frustrating conversations that we have, even when some of us as advocates champion the programs I just mentioned, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and we always will, these are, these are the big ones that support older adults across income streams just across our country. They’re a critical safety net and earned benefit programs and we’ve got to make sure that they’re there and we can do some smarter things within some of them, like get more people services at home and in the community and Medicaid versus in institutions where nobody really wants to be, but by and large we have to make sure we’re protecting access to these health and income support. However, we go back to that in my mind’s eye, and maybe your listeners can picture this, this pie chart that’s saying, well, but all of that and a couple other key and critical programs such as the supplemental nutrition assistance programs, SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, those programs are all on the mandatory side.
Amy Gotwals (15:46):
So every year Congress is having those programs continue uninterrupted. The problem becomes that when we have these budget conversations, which we’re very much having now with the President and the Republicans and the majority in both chambers saying that they’re very concerned about the deficit and the long-term debt and we need to reduce government spending, rarely does anyone actually try to tackle the largest part of the federal budget, the mandatory program. Well, that’s because these are beloved programs and a lot of Americans rely on them. And so first it was just so security considered the third rail as in don’t touch that rail on the train tracks. It’s dangerous for politicians. Medicare is largely in that bucket as well. And now we have President Trump sometimes saying, hey, Medicaid’s in there too. I don’t want to cut it. So they’ve just taken off the table and their goal of deficit reduction, many of the programs that will need to get bigger as our population continues to age and we have more and more older adults.
Amy Gotwals (16:44):
I mean it’s just nonsensical. And to be totally fair, democrats don’t like to talk about that either. They want to strengthen those programs, but there has to be a way that we pay for it. And that’s what the conversation Congress avoids. So democrats don’t want to say that if we really look at the numbers, we really to be fiscally responsible. This is my opinion, need to be looking at tax rates. If we have an older population, are we going to help take care of them the way they took care of us or not? That’s a question that should be on the table. Instead, they don’t want to raise that their politicians and Republicans want continued tax cuts and more tax cuts. That’s the President’s possibly biggest priority in his second administration. So what does that mean? So how do you get that when you know demand on these programs is going to grow?
Amy Gotwals (17:29):
Will you either change the way those programs work to squeeze savings out of them or you double down and squeeze the heck out of that discretionary 30% of the budget. What we’re seeing with DOGE is squeezing the heck out of that discretionary budget in large part, this is everything else you can think about. The government spends these discretionary programs, the people who actually work in Social Security in the field offices and in DC they’re paid for in discretionary. The payments we all make to Social Security system pay for benefits for people currently drawing benefits and of course we get credits for it, but the people who actually work at Social Security are under the discretionary budget. The people who work at the IRS, the people in the FBI <laugh>, all of these workers and all the programs and other payments that go out, National Parks, foreign aid, Older Americans Act programs, lots of other healthcare programs that we all know about and some love and some don’t, but all of that’s in that 30% wedge so we never really have a huge conversation about what does this pie really need to look like and is there a need to drive more revenues coming in?
Amy Gotwals (18:34):
And so I’ll just close with that. There is objectively a long-term debt problem. We’ve kept it in balance as far as ratio to GDP for a good long while. You know, and the economy does well, then the economy doesn’t go well and as that changes that it’s been largely imbalanced, but we really need to have a more honest conversation than I think honestly any politician <laugh> is willing to have about if we want to keep these programs, what does that look like and what does it mean for those of us who are not yet drawing down on programs who are still paying into systems but would like them to be there, but may need to pay more now. So that’s my soapbox probably went on too long about that. But I’ve been looking at this budget <laugh> as a non-economist for 30 years and I just think we haven’t come to terms with the fact that even people in different parties, political affiliations are going to make different choices about what the government should spend money on or not spend money on.
Amy Gotwals (19:29):
But let’s face it, if you poll actual Americans, they want these programs supported. That’s why the President said he supports it and will prevent cuts. And yet we have his party or Republicans in Congress attempting in the coming months to make cuts to these programs so that they can pay for tax cuts. So we can’t have all the cake and eat too all the time. And no one really wants to talk about that and what this dessert tray looks like and what we as a country can gain out of supporting older adults in their later years supporting people with disabilities, supporting the families who are already doing so much unpaid caregiving to support their loved ones and friends.
Jason Maciejewski (20:05):
Certainly there are long-term discussions that have gone on about Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. I mean, Social Security I believe has been projected to become insolvent in 2032, which happens to be the year that I turn 62 years of age. You know, so these have been questions that have been around for quite some time that we have historically needed to deal with. And now we’ve got this new kind of approach to budgeting and appropriations from the Trump administration that is really changing the dynamics. So when you think about potential implications of proposed cuts to these safety net programs, it is astounding to think what an $880 billion cut to Medicaid could mean for long-term services and supports and so many other things that Medicaid impacts. And we have begun hearing from, you know, people in our area about, you know, they’re worried about their future Social Security checks and they are worried about their Medicare.
Jason Maciejewski (21:03):
And again, we are telling these people to make sure they’re communicating their concerns and their thoughts to the members of Congress as we move along here. But when we think about advocating on these issues, US Aging is obviously at the forefront of this for the Area Agencies on Aging and the work that we do every day. What are some of the federal policies that are supportive of older Americans that US Aging has really been focusing on and is going to be focusing on as we go through this continual budget process and hopefully some policy work as well. What have you been working on at US Aging?
Amy Gotwals (21:37):
We’re releasing our latest policy agenda at the end of this month, just in a few weeks as advocates gather here in Washington DC from our network of US Aging members to do exactly as you said, and I’m so glad that’s what you tell folks in your area. You’ve go to let Congress know if you have concerns. They are the ones who are supposed to be making these decision. <laugh>, we have a President who would like to be the one who makes some of them and that’s going to be eventually tested in the courts or tested, pushed back by Congress. I don’t know what’ll happen. But in the meantime, people need to understand how their lives are touched or not touched. And then I’m not saying positively or negatively, but to understand the impact of what’s being discussed in Washington and the impact of federal funding or programs on their lives.
Amy Gotwals (22:20):
And if they have a concern, a fear, a critique, they should be in touch. That is why you send people to Congress. So they’re representing your interest from your corner of the country. But so this year we are focusing in on four priorities. The Older Americans Act, the bill still needs to be reauthorized. We got so close in the last Congress, a bipartisan bill with broad support from the advocacy community. It was in the year end funding package and for reasons that had nothing to do with the substance of the bill, it was dropped among many other things in that final push before the Christmas holidays at the end of 2024. So sadly that Bill didn’t get all the way through. Really a lot of work was put into by Republicans and Democrats in both chambers. So we were very disappointed. We’ve spent the last couple months trying to just get that moved forward.
Amy Gotwals (23:10):
Three out of four of those four corners on the authorizing committees, which are different than the appropriations we’ve been talking about. Three of those four leaders in House and Senate. And of course both parties will be ready to move that bill forward. We do have a change because there is a new congress and there’s a new chairman on the House side and actually from Michigan, Congressman Tim Walberg, Republican from Michigan, and he is new chairman of the House committee with jurisdiction over OAA. So we’re giving him respect and time to get his committee up and running to figure out his priorities for that committee. We know this is on his radar, we just don’t know where we are in his queue, so we’ll need to work with him and his team, which we’re already doing as best we can and we’ll hopefully get that through in this Congress.
Amy Gotwals (23:55):
But then as we’ve been talking about this whole time, the funding is really where the river meets the road. If that funding doesn’t continue, if that funding is cut, that’s what has the even greater impact on the programs and services you’re able to offer in your community and other AAAs and community providers around the country. So Older Americans Act, protecting it, advancing it in the case of reauthorization, getting some much needed modernizations going there is a priority for us this year. We also want to make sure we’re focusing on building the capacity of family and professional caregivers. We know we have workforce issues with caregiving at all levels within our Area Agency on Aging staff and providers as well as of course direct care workforce pressures that are not going to get better on their own. So we want to pay attention to that as well as supporting those family and friend caregivers who, as I alluded to before, are the backbone of our long-term care system such as it is in this country and provide, I think it’s $53 billion of unpaid care every year.
Amy Gotwals (24:57):
We cannot afford to have them go down. They need support and they need it now. And you mentioned Medicaid home and community-based services and the potential threats to that program through the Congress’s current budget resolution. And so that’s a priority of ours. We’d love to see that program expand, but right now we just want to make sure it doesn’t contract and suffer cuts that don’t reflect the fact that we have an aging population that don’t reflect that the most affordable kind of care is providing it in the home and in the community versus institutions. And we need to make smart choices that use taxpayer dollars well to deal with the reality is that for some people as they age, they need this level of support to be able to either remain independent in their home or live in some other community setting. We’ve got to face that reality and deal with it.
Amy Gotwals (25:45):
And so we’ll be working hard through this next budget process not only to protect Older Americans Act in appropriations, but also in these conversations about potentially changing Medicaid. And finally, our aging network has done a tremendous amount of work over the last 10 to 15 years in engaging with healthcare. All of us as people, especially those of us who need some sort of social support – supportive services in the home, we’re a whole person and we want to have our care as coordinated as possible. And I’ve got this doctor over here and this and we talk about how to coordinate better among medical professionals, but what the network and the field of healthcare is increasingly learning if you don’t address the social challenges in people’s lives and particularly older adults who need a little help in the home to remain as independent as possible, to remain healthy, if you don’t address that, it doesn’t matter what their doctor says.
Amy Gotwals (26:35):
Right? And you know this so well Jason, if their refrigerator goes in and out, well then they’re not going to be compliant with the medicine the doctor prescribed that needs constant refrigeration. If they’re going home after the hospital and there’s no groceries at all in the home but they need to take that medicine with food, that’s going to be a problem. And it’s not doctors and nurses who will address that. It’s people who are social care experts such as those in the AAA and aging network more broadly. So we have some policy changes we wan to see as our country hopefully continues to evolve in this regard and realize that connecting that healthcare with that social care, everybody still keeps their jobs. We don’t merge it all together, but we recognize that if we’re really going to ensure we’re not spending unnecessary costs in healthcare and we’re trying to keep people healthier, then there has to be better coordination between those two sectors.
Jason Maciejewski (27:28):
Yeah. So there are many people from the Aging Network, the Area Agency on Aging world that listen to our podcast and I think it’s important to highlight how US Aging supports the AAA network and advocacy and the work that we do to support the work that you’re doing in DC. Could you talk about the collaboration between US Aging and the AAA network across the country and how we can work together to advocate on all these important things we’ve been talking about today?
Amy Gotwals (27:56):
Sure, happy to. And for those who aren’t familiar with US Aging, but are coming in at from the community level or the state level, I’ll just mention that we represent the Area Agencies on Aging 614 nationwide in 42 states where there’s a AAA structure under the Older Americans Act. And we also advocate in the nation’s capital for the Older Americans Act, Title VI Native American Aging Programs, of which there are more than 280 now around the country, providing additional supports and services to tribal elders. With that mission we do a lot now as an association to support the capacity of our members, but at our core, we’re obviously in Washington DC so we can also influence policy. So it’s essentially that our members pay us dues so we can make sure that we are following the hearings going on on Capitol Hill. We are talking to congressional staff, we are reading the bills, we are looking at aging policy through the lens of the AAA staff who all of us are working on behalf of older adults.
Amy Gotwals (28:59):
We put them and hold them first and foremost, but our angle, if you will, is to take the on the ground experiences of Area Agency on Aging leaders and reflect that as much as we can and collaborating with others who are coming from slightly different perspectives to influence the federal policy that’s passed. A lot of compromises were made on that Older Americans Act reauthorization bill that I mentioned because you work with your friends over at this association and that association and different providers are coming from a slightly different perspective sometimes than AAAs, but ultimately we all want to work together to be able to better serve older adults and caregivers out in the community everywhere. So that we see this as a very core part of our work and ways we do it. I’m always open to new suggestions on how we do it, but we do a fair amount of sending out advocacy alerts when it’s time to take action.
Amy Gotwals (29:54):
We’ve sent those out on those potential Medicaid threats last month. We’ve sent them out updates on what happened with the continuing resolution last week. So we send out updates and calls to action to our members as well as are always willing to pop into meetings, advisory board meetings, give policy updates, talking with our members so that everyone can be as read in as possible even though you have very busy day jobs with how federal policy at the administration and at the congressional level may ultimately affect the work you’re able to do to meet your mission.
Jason Maciejewski (30:29):
So I want to point out that The Senior Alliance does a lot of advocacy action alerts and virtually everything that we do on the federal side in those action alerts, the base of those come from your work in the advocacy team at US Aging. So if there are listeners who want to make sure they subscribe to our advocacy publications, so that would be emailing advocacy@thesenioralliance.org to get on our list and we’ll make sure that everybody receives those advocacy action alerts and remains informed about not only the federal stuff, but also the stuff going on here in Lansing on the Michigan side as well. Great resource that we kind of transmit from the work that you do at US Aging to the people in our area. Amy, I know we’ve got the policy briefing here at the end of March, beginning of April. I look forward to being in DC and doing that, those visits on the Hill. But how can individuals and communities and listeners support US Aging’s initiatives and really protect and enhance the services that older adults and caregivers are utilizing?
Amy Gotwals (31:28):
Yeah, well you’ve already given them the answer. I mean, stay connected to your local AAA that’s putting out this information. There are such a reputable, non-biased source of information on all aging issues and wherever they can, some do varying degrees of this, but also as you do Jason and your agency is put out information on the policy making that’s happening. It’s no good to tell you about it later if there was a change made that would be negative to great work happening in communities, people really get disconnected from how much of what looming locally, as I like to say, got seeded back in DC with a kind of bedrock amount of federal funding and then leveraged and grown and everyone gets a little skin in the game. And then you do amazing work to create services. But I think a lot of clients and family members of clients do not appreciate how much can’t do without the federal funding.
Amy Gotwals (32:17):
We did a survey of our members I think last month as we were concerned about federal funding freezes or potential shutdown and a tremendous amount of agencies, if that federal funding is pulled out, they would very quickly have to adjust services. And I don’t think the public knows about that. So anything advice is anything you can do, whether with your local AAA, other statewide advocacy groups that are connected to the Aging Network, whether it’s a provider advocacy group or a, you know, everybody working together look for trusted authorities in the community and in your state that are translating what’s going on federally and helping you understand how this impacts what you’re seeing and hopefully supporting on the ground in your community. It’s often hard to make the connection between what politicians are talking about in the news and a program, you know, is vital to keeping your next door neighbors safe and well and thriving at home if people have a very hard time.
Amy Gotwals (33:13):
These programs are complicated. There’s multiple funding streams and I think the more Americans can ask these questions and find trusted resources to say, wait, is that Medicaid, that program that has been renamed by the state something else? Oh, well they’re talking about this over in Congress. I want to connect those dots because, you know, maybe I support the President but I don’t support this program going away. And I think the public needs to ask more of these questions and make sure they’re really understanding all the factors. And then of course, you know, make your own decision of what you want to say to your senators or your Congress people. So look for those trusted sources who are non-biased, non-partisan, who can just explain the policy to you because there’s going to be a lot of rhetoric this summer as the Republicans in Congress really want to move the President’s agenda.
Amy Gotwals (34:01):
No surprise there, they have a trifecta. They’re going to try to advance his agenda. And so you’re going to hear a lot and you’ll hear someone say they’re cutting this and you’ll hear someone else say, no, we’re not cutting that at all. What’s an average American who cares about their neighbors and community and their own aging process to do? So look for those trusted sources that will give you that non-biased information. And as you said, Jason, when in doubt, call your Congress people too. Make sure if you’re concerned about something, they realize this is an issue for you. Don’t be shy about that. They work for you.
Jason Maciejewski (34:35):
Amy, that’s the most important thing people can do right now is call their member of Congress and call their US senators and tell them how important these things are. I really appreciate you giving us some time today to join us on Inside The Senior Alliance. It’s always a pleasure to have you on and do what is now I think an annual look at what’s going on in DC. So Amy, thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.
Amy Gotwals (34:57):
Thank you, Jason.
Jason Maciejewski (34:58):
If you have questions about services or programs The Senior Alliance offers, you can call us at (734) 722-2830 or email us at info@thesenioralliance.org. Information about our agency or the programs and services we offer can be found on our website at thesenioralliance.org. And there you can also find our suite of advocacy tools, including how to identify who your member of Congress is and easily connect with them through our website. Finally, we’re on Facebook and we can be located there by searching for The Senior Alliance. I’m Jason Maciejewski. Thank you for listening to this episode of Inside The Senior Alliance.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Inside The Senior Alliance is a production of The Senior Alliance and Blazing Kiss Media.
