Home care groups have come together to express their support for the Older Americans Act (OAA) and warn Congress that disrupting the OAA could leave elderly people without compromising home care.
On May 22, more than 50 healthcare providers and advocacy groups, including Addus HomeCare, the national alliance of National Caregiving and Leading Wayge, wrote to Congress to highlight the meaning of “splitting” the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the OAA.
“I joined Leadingage in favor of the OAA, taking into account the restructuring of the HHS, including the demolition of the OAA Living (ACL), and taking into account the restructuring of the HHS, housing the OAA program,” Leadingage's Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs told Home Health Care News. “We support the letter's message to advocate that the parliamentary committees governing the OAA will specifically intervene and ensure that these programs are aging, even if they end up as new parts of the HHS.”
Washington, DC-based Reading is an association of over 5,000 non-profit aging service providers and organizations.
In March, HHS announced a significant restructuring, including integration of HHS' 28 divisions into 15 new divisions. A leaked copy of HHS' 2026 budget divides the programs that make up the OAA into various institutions. The authors say it undermines the program's coordinated approach.
“OAA works very well due to its coordinated approach, ensuring that state and local agencies and their community provider partners can provide a wide range of person-centered services to meet the needs of seniors and caregivers as efficiently as possible,” the letter reads.
The OAA was enacted in 1965 as a federal law designed to support older Americans. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, it provides state grants for community planning, social services and training in the field of aging, with the aim of helping seniors stay independent and live with dignity within their communities. Additionally, the OAA established a government on Aging (AOA) to oversee these programs, serving as the federal focus on issues related to older adults.
As part of the reorganization effort, HHS will split the OAA program into two institutions. The Center for Management for Children and Families (ACF) and Medicare & Medicaid Services.
“Advanced progress in the proposed division of programs in the OAA will seriously impact the ability of seniors to obtain the services and support they need to maintain their lives in their homes and communities, facing placement in an institutional environment, as well as costing them through unnecessary and wasteful administrative burdens in federal and local aging cases.
President Trump signed the 2020 supportive Americans Act and reapproved the OAA. At the time, Susan Collins (R. Maine) praised the law after being unanimously passed in the Senate.
“For over half a century, the Older American Act has served as a lifeline for millions of seniors by enriching their lives and improving their overall health,” Collins said in a statement. “This bipartisan law will help ensure that OAAs continue to align with the goals they have set to allow older people to age in their dignity, respect and community.”
