Sixth White House Conference on Aging: Now It ’s Time to Do More. A Lot More.

Around the country, people at more than 700 “watch parties” gathered to tune into a livestream of the White House Conference on Aging (WHCOA) on Monday, July 13. Hosted by the White House in the East Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with an invited audience of about 200 attendees, the sixth WHCOA featured more than two dozen speakers, most notably President Obama. They heard about many accomplishments, a few shortcomings, and a commitment to taking forward some solutions—but not enough. Striking a tone that was both optimistic and pragmatic, the President observed that even as challenges for health care programs and for individual retirement security are “becoming more urgent” due to the sheer size of the Baby Boomer cohort, older adults are “living longer and living healthier. We’re seeing people break athletic records—in their 60s,” he noted with a smile. Turning to policy, the President called on attendees, policymakers, and citizens to keep Medicare, Medicaid, the Older Americans Act (OAA), and Social Security robust and available, not only for current seniors but also for younger generations. “For Medicare,” he noted, “that means we’ve got to keep slowing the growth of health care costs.” While no blueprint was presented at the conference for how to accomplish this, the Obama Administration waded into these controversial waters last January with an announcement by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sy...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs