On Tuesday evening the US Senate, utilizing a process for non-controversial pieces of legislation, passed a Older Americans Act (OAA) reauthorization bill, significantly advancing congressional efforts to reauthorize OAA before the year’s close. The bill now goes to the House for its approval.  The OAA funds programs and services for older adults such as personal care, in-home respite, care coordination, information & referral, transportation, caregiver services, congregate and home delivered meals. The bill, which was first developed on a bipartisan basis within the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has been modestly modified following months of quiet negotiations between HELP and the equivalent committee in the House, the Education and Workforce Committee.  It is important to recognize that it is a bipartisan bill with bicameral support, and it reflects the realities of a bipartisan Hill process and the input of dozens of aging organizations over the past year.

We don’t want to lose this momentum and have to start all over again in 2025 with a brand-new Congress! Several OAA champions who worked on this bill in the Senate will not return to the chamber next year, and it’s unclear if OAA would be a priority for the incoming Congress. That’s why the next three weeks are critical!

Action now turns to the House, although Senate and House leaders on OAA have not yet reached a final deal on the bill’s authorization levels. Authorization levels are recommendations from the authorizing committee to the appropriations committees—they do not actually guarantee that OAA is funded at these levels. In fact, I can’t recall a time when they were ever funded at the recommended levels.  The Senate-passed bill recommends authorization level increases of 4.62 percent each year for five years, although we believe this level of recommended increases may make House passage somewhat difficult.

Please reach out to your House member and ask them to support the reauthorization of the Older Americans Act.