WASHINGTON, March 7 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today led the committee in a hearing titled, “The Older Americans Act: Supporting Efforts to Meet the Needs of Seniors.”

Sanders’ remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below and can be watch here:

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will come to order.

Before we get to the Older Americans Act, I just wanted to make a couple of observations.

First, as you all know, this committee launched an investigation into the outrageously high cost of inhalers that millions of patients with asthma and COPD need to breathe. Our investigation pointed out that, in some cases, Americans were paying more than ten times the price for their inhalers compared to the people of other major countries. In the last month, I have had the opportunity to speak to the CEOs of the four major corporations that produce these inhalers. I am happy to mention that today, one of those manufacturers, Boehringer Ingelheim, announced that it is substantially lowering the cost of their inhalers in America by making sure that every uninsured or under-insured patient in America will pay no more than $35 for these devices. I very much appreciate this step forward by Boehringer Ingelheim and look forward too seeing the other major corporations follow suit.

Secondly, I wanted to tell you what I think most of you know. The minibus that was passed by the House yesterday and will soon, I expect be passed by the Senate, contains new funding for community health centers, the National Health Service Corps and Teaching Health Centers. The community health center program will go up from $4 billion in mandatory funding to $4.4 billion, the National Health Service Corps will go up from $310 million in funding to $364 million and the Teaching Health Center program will go up from $126.5 million in funding to $201 million. This committee has held a number of hearings on primary health care and I think there is wide recognition that our system is in crisis, not enough doctors, nurses, mental health counselors, dentists, pharmacists, etc. Also, tens of millions of Americans, even those with decent insurance, are unable to access health care in a timely manner. While, given the dysfunctionality of Congress, the amount of increases we obtained for these three important programs is significant, it goes nowhere near far enough and I hope that, in the coming months, this committee will once again return to the need to transform the primary healthcare system in America.

Now, let’s get to the subject matter today, the Older Americans Act.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 23 percent of seniors in America are living in poverty compared to just 12 percent in Canada, 9 percent in Germany and 4.4 percent in France.

Further, one out of every four seniors in America is trying to survive on an income of less than $15,000 a year.

Today we will be paying attention to the urgent unmet needs of millions of seniors in America and what we should do as a society to reduce the senior poverty rate, to reduce hunger, and to improve the health and well-being of some of the most vulnerable people in our country.

In America today, 12 million seniors are dealing with food insecurity and worried about not having enough food to eat.

Nearly a quarter of our nation’s seniors are considered to be socially isolated and more than one out of every four seniors suffer from tragic falls – the leading cause of death from injury among our elderly population.

Nearly 95 percent of adults over the age of 60 have a chronic health condition and 80 percent have two or more chronic conditions like high blood pressure, arthritis and diabetes.

Seniors throughout our country, particularly in rural areas, lack the transportation they need to get to a doctor’s office, the grocery store or the dentist.

That should not be happening in the United States of America, the richest country in the history of the world.

In my view, both from a moral perspective and from an economic perspective, we cannot turn our backs on the millions and millions of seniors who are hurting and who desperately need our help today.

Now, here is the good news.

We have a very effective piece of legislation on the books to address the urgent needs of vulnerable seniors and that is the Older Americans Act.

The Older Americans Act provides federal funding for many essential services for our nation’s seniors including helping older adults live at home, supporting our nation’s caregivers, activities to combat loneliness and isolation, preventing disease, job training, protections from abuse, and rides to the doctor’s office and grocery store.

Importantly, about 45 percent of funding from the Older Americans Act is used to provide meals to millions of frail and isolated seniors through Meals on Wheels and through congregate meal programs at senior centers.

So, when we talk about the Older Americans Act, let us understand that some 45 percent of the funding is going to nutrition programs for seniors who need that help.

And let’s be clear: These nutrition programs not only provide good nutrition but anybody who understands the Meals on Wheels program knows that its importance is not just the actual meals delivered, but also the fact that somebody is knocking on their door to see how they are and to chat with them for a few minutes.

This social interaction can mean an enormous amount to somebody who is living alone and who doesn’t communicate much with the world.

Not only does the Older Americans Act save lives and ease human suffering, it saves money.

If seniors do not get the nutrition they need and seniors become malnourished, what happens to those seniors?

Well, if you’re malnourished, by definition, you’re going to get sick more often than you should. If you’re old and you’re sick, where do you end up?

You may end up in the emergency room at great expense to Medicare and Medicaid. If you’re malnourished and you’re weak and you fall and you break your hip, which happens all the time, you end up in the hospital at an expense of tens and tens of thousands of dollars. 

As a matter of fact, malnutrition among seniors today costs our society over $50 billion each and every year.

The truth is that it makes a lot more sense to provide adequate nutrition to frail seniors than to spend money on preventable hospital costs.

In fact, it costs less to feed a senior for an entire year through the Older Americans Act than it does for a senior to spend one night in a hospital.

Providing adequate nutrition services for seniors also reduces the need for nursing home care. In America today, the median cost of a private room in a nursing home is over $100,000 a year.

Most seniors would prefer to stay in their own homes. We can do that. It saves the system money and keeps seniors in contact with their friends and their family. But to do that, we have to make sure that their basic needs are taken care of.

Despite the success of the Older Americans Act in keeping seniors healthy, independent, and out of hospitals and nursing homes, its programs have been inadequately funded for years.

Since 2016, despite increased demand and a massive increase in the number of seniors in America, funding for the Older Americans Act has gone down by nearly 20 percent after adjusting for inflation.

As a result, seniors who are desperate for nutritious food are being put on waiting lists that can last for months.

One out of every three Meals on Wheels programs in America today have waiting lists and some programs are being forced to close their doors.

While over 2 million seniors receive nutrition services under the Older Americans Act, over 12 million seniors are food insecure and are unable to access these services.

Clearly, now is the time for Congress to act.

We can choose to continue to waste billions of dollars on emergency room visits and unnecessary hospital stays, or we can provide older Americans with the resources and the services they need to live healthier, more secure, and more dignified lives.

The Older Americans Act is an important part of the solution.

In my view, it is our responsibility not simply to re-authorize this legislation and maintain the status quo. It is our responsibility to expand the Older Americans Act so that every vulnerable senior in America can receive the services that they need.

And that is why I am very proud to have authored a letter signed by 41 of my colleagues in the Senate calling for a doubling of funding for the Older Americans Act – from over $2 billion a year to a level of more than $4.6 billion a year.

I request unanimous consent to insert that letter into the record.

Now, I understand that $4.6 billion sounds like a lot of money and it is a lot of money. But it is even more expensive for Medicare and Medicaid to pay tens of billions of dollars in healthcare bills every year because of senior malnutrition and senior falls.

As Senator Cassidy has reminded us over and over again: An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.

And with that let me recognize Senator Cassidy for his opening statement.