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Cuts Leave Elderly with Fewer Helping Hands
By Cory Reiss, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune
March 22, 2004
Radiation therapy was bad, but Floridian Tom Atkinson says tougher still was struggling to pay bills when no one would hire him after he beat throat cancer.
"The marketplace is not real receptive to people in their 60s who are cancer victims," the 62-year-old from Venice said last week.
Atkinson is uninsured and unemployed after he quit his job in September 2001 to fight for his life. His bills include expensive food supplements and medical equipment.
Atkinson couldn't even get a part-time job feeding dogs at a local kennel. In January 2003, he turned to a federally funded job-training program for older Americans. The program, run locally by the seniors group AARP, temporarily pays minimum wage for community service jobs until people like him find work off the federal rolls.
He was assigned to help other job seekers at a local Jobs Etc. The state-funded job bank hired him permanently in December, and his pay jumped from the federally funded $5.15 an hour to $12.36 from the state.
"When my pay jumped, I started breathing easier," he said.
Atkinson is one of thousands who get help from federal programs for older Americans, including the Community Service Employment for Older Americans Program and Meals on Wheels. But in Florida alone, there are about 14,000 more seniors on waiting lists for federal and state programs, despite big increases in state funding in recent years.
The graying of America is a common topic on Capitol Hill, where Medicare and Social Security often dominate. But federal funding for many smaller programs that help seniors with day-to-day living has stagnated since domestic budgets began to tighten after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Bush administration's tax cuts.
President Bush is calling for a government-wide clampdown on domestic spending in 2005. But advocates for seniors say the most frail and vulnerable would be left behind for a third straight year.
Bush's 2005 budget proposal would continue flat funding for many core seniors programs since 2002.
The Census Bureau projects that the 65-84 population will double from about 30.8 million to 65.8 million by 2050. The number of people 85 and older will grow five-fold, from 4.3 million to 20.9 million.
The picture isn't all bad. The older poor are benefiting from a handful of new programs and the new Medicare prescription drug law. But inflation and population growth are outpacing many programs that poor seniors have depended upon.
"Low-income seniors are doing marginally better, but the core programs that have served them for years are dying on the vine," said Tim Gearan, senior legislative representative at AARP.
Going hungry
Atkinson said he often meets with widows in their 80s who come to Jobs Etc. for work, unable to afford both food and medicine.
"It's really sad," Atkinson said. "They really can't work, but they've got to have more income."
In 2001, Congress boosted the job-training program that helped Atkinson. Its funding was increased to $445 million in the 2002 fiscal year. But two years of cuts followed. Bush proposes about the same as last year for 2005, $440 million. Senior volunteerism programs would get increases of about $22 million, however.
Federally funded meals in senior centers and other group settings were funded at $390 million in 2002, but funding for 2003 was cut. The 2005 budget plan would increase funding, but still not to the $390 million level of 2002. The trend is similar for a program that provides incentives for states to increase meal services to seniors.
The situation was looking up for Meals on Wheels when Congress boosted funding by $24 million for the 2002 fiscal year. After the terrorist attacks, lawmakers added a modest $4 million for 2003. The home delivery program took a slight cut this year, but Bush's 2005 budget would restore funding to the 2003 level.
Nevertheless, AARP estimates Meals on Wheels will have to cut 5.5 million meals this year and about that many in 2005.
"What it means is seniors are going hungry," said Peggy Ingraham, director of policy and legislation for the Meals on Wheels Association of America.
She said at least 40 percent of Meals on Wheels programs have waiting lists, citing static federal funding, more seniors and rising costs for food and the gasoline to deliver it. Each federal dollar leverages another three from state and other sources.
New York City's Meals on Wheels will soon experiment with frozen meals to cut down on the number of visits to seniors, striking fear in advocates who say part of the program's purpose is human contact.
Awash in red ink, the White House is scaling back an ambitious Medicaid proposal intended to move poor seniors out of institutional care into home settings. Last year, Bush proposed $1.75 billion over five years but didn't get it. Now he proposes $500 million for that program through 2009. At the same time, many states have cut Medicaid services or are considering doing so.
Congress shows no signs of stepping in with more money. The Leadership Council on Aging, an umbrella organization for many groups, argues that these programs should get a 10 percent increase each year to keep up with the growing older population.
Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Aging Committee, said the basics of food and rent are at least as important as higher-profile debates about Medicare and prescription drugs.
"I would argue they are probably more important because many of the people fighting over Medicare and prescription drugs are better off financially than the people who need these services," he said.
Holding the lifeline
Edwin Walker, deputy assistant secretary for policy and programs at the U.S. Administration on Aging, said the administration has focused on innovative programs and giving states flexibility in spending what Washington provides.
"We are investing in our aging network to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of a program that is highly successful," he said.
Congress isn't bound to Bush's budget plans, but many advocates say the impoverished elderly are slipping through the cracks because they don't have a strong lobby. Some lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill agree.
For example, AARP, the largest seniors group, is focusing more on younger seniors than it used to as it shifts attention to aging baby boomers. Gearan, the senior legislative representative at AARP, said resources are more diluted but that AARP's commitment to low-income seniors hasn't changed.
"We want people to know their federal government is abandoning the lifeline for America's low-income seniors," he said.
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