 Well, thank you all about to bring down this theme. I thank you all very much for coming on out. Turns out I enchantment of a committee called the Health Education Labor Extension today, which, among other issues, deals with the Older Americans Act, which is the program that provides funding for the Contragett Field Program and the Ilsan Field among other programs. So I simply would like to discuss with you in an informal way some of the issues that seniors are dealing with, what the federal government can do to improve the situation, and to tell you that we're working hard to significantly increase funding for the Older American Act. I know many of the senior centers that provide congregate meals and meals and meals that happen on time financially, but the cost of food is going up with kinds of allocations to get in from the federal government or not. So we're conscious of that and then try to do our best. I don't know, do we have any volunteers here who work on meals and meals? I want to thank you very much. The work you're doing is one of the issues that seniors deal with, especially if they're my closest house, is the issue of loneliness. And meals and meals not only provides nutritious food, but also provides the opportunity for somebody to be isolated and child with somebody else. You cannot overstate the importance of it. So let me just open it up and ask you what's on your mind, on any issue, but maybe let's start on senior issues number one, place you'd like to go. What's on your mind? Okay, we have one more right there. Hi, thank you. Just to connect in relation to your comment about the seniors being isolated, I am a volunteer with the Central Vermont Council on Aging. And they have a wonderful program where it's called Creative Companions. And what we do, and they provide the Council on Aging, provide the crafts, materials, the watercolor panes, and provide volunteers like us to connect with these seniors who are, I wouldn't say really isolated, but to be, to connect with them, to help them be creative in crafts watercolor painting. So I would like to try to find out the best way to even spread this type of program across Vermont. I'm sure it's not just Central Vermont. That's a great idea. I mean, one of the things that I learned a long, long time ago when I was mayor of Roehlington is that you steal good ideas. So there are, you know, the city is doing something that makes sense, you steal it. And I'm sure that there are senior centers in this state are doing great things and others can learn from what others are doing. So that's a great idea. Oh, by the way, Haley, where are you? Okay, Haley and Beth work in my office. And if you have any questions or comments. Jake is here too. And Jake is here too. Okay. All right, other thoughts on any issue, but stay on seniors and we'll go. Yeah. Mary Alice, hold on. Mary Alice Visby from Montpelier. I'd just like to say that as an 87-year-old person and someone who voted for you years and years ago. I know that. I've been around for a long time, but now I can't afford assisted living. It costs over $6,000 a month and they want you to pay for two years before you go on Medicaid. And there's just a real lack. I've been subsidized housing, which is great. I love my apartment, but I can't find anybody to help me. There's no helpers. And this is a real severe problem all around the country. Mary Alice, in one sentence, put this here where I haven't seen you. In one sentence, you've summarized a lot of issues that are out there. Housing is a crisis for seniors. Housing is a crisis for the whole country. And assisted living is a major, major issue. Without going through a whole song and dance, there was a bill last year called Build Back Better, which would have provided well over $100 billion into affordable housing, including senior housing. We lost it by two votes. So we're working on it. And the issue of home healthcare of getting, let's stay on that issue, what Alice is talking about is that people who are home sometimes need help for somebody, maybe to cook a meal or make the bed or help them with a bath. Is that an issue that we're seeing around the community? Yes, yes. All right, Alice, who else wants to talk about that a little bit? You want to say a word? I work for SASH support services at home. And thank you for being a supporter of that. And over the last 10 years or so, in SASH there's people primarily who are living in affordable housing around the state. And we have a wellness nurse who's preventative, not providing services like that. But we are seeing the acuity of our residents who are staying at home longer, but also there's no place for them to go even when it might be a better choice. So just. The issue of home healthcare is a real, real crisis. And it's fighting the overall crisis of healthcare in America in general. All right, who wants to, let's segue into healthcare. What do we think about our healthcare system? Wonderful, flawless, easy to navigate, inexpensive, plenty of doctors available to come and meet them. Okay, what else needs to know about the, yes sir. So I work with seniors that are blind and visually impaired. And in the OAA there's some wonderful identification of special populations. Individuals who have vision loss at times are twice as likely to develop chronic conditions like diabetes and cardiac issues. And vision rehabilitation services can help those individuals to reduce the likelihood of developing those conditions as well as reducing social isolation and depression that's related. Is it possible in the reauthorization of the OAA to help identify special populations like the visually impaired seniors to make sure they get the services they need? Thank you, thank you for your suggestion. All right, healthcare in general, what are the problems that seniors sort of interview of helping them to? Now let me start off with a simple issue, prescription drug costs, is that an issue? Yeah. All right, who wants to tell me about the cost of prescription drugs? Affordable? Unaffordable, yeah. All right, but what do we know about it? What are some of the problems we're running into? Just the cost, the cost of prescription drugs is ridiculous. Give me some examples. Well, my family lives in Canada, so I can give you an example there of what they pay for prescription drugs, the same drugs we have pretty much, and they're nowhere near the prices we're paying here for prescription drugs. This is an issue that my committee is working very hard on with some success. Let me talk a little bit about it. Diabetes is a major, major crisis in this country. And the cost of insulin has been extremely high. We put enough pressure on the three major manufacturers of insulin products to substantially drop their prices. So that was one thing. Just recently, I've been on the phone in the last month with the CEOs of some of the largest drug companies in the world who make asthma and OPCD inhalers. Anybody here know anybody who uses an inhaler? The price of inhalers in the United States, as this gentleman indicated, far, far, far higher. It depends. It's a complicated system. You have good insurance, it may not be that bad. If you're buying out of your own pocket, going to a drug store, it could be very, very high. Much higher than it is in Canada or in Europe. We spoke with a lot of pressure on these manufacturers. They're going to be dropping their price. The three major ones count at $35. Nobody in America will be paying more than $35 out of pocket, as opposed to paying hundreds of dollars, which is a big step forward. Just this morning, actually, with yesterday and today, we're dealing with ozempic. People know what ozempic is. It's a drug used to deal with people with diabetes and with weight loss. A lot of people overweight in America. Apropos your point, in Canada, the product we think is sold more or less, or about 300 bucks. Ozempic in America is sold for $1,000. In other countries, it's less than $300. So it's made by a company called NoHo Notice, and we are speaking to them, we'll be speaking to them, and asking them why they're charging us so much more for this product, that so many people want and need compared to other countries. And the problem is not only that people who need it can't afford it. The problem is Medicare's going to go bankrupt if they have to pay these outrageous prices. So it's an issue for the federal government, it's an insurance, I talked to the guy who's had a United Health recently, and they got a problem. If they cover it for weight loss, it'll raise premiums substantially. So we are working hard to answer the question as to why in this country, we pay so much more, many times more, sometimes 10 times more, 20 times more, for the same exact product that other people in other countries pay. And the answer is that in all these other countries, they have one form of a national healthcare programs which guarantee healthcare for all people, and say to the drug companies, you want to do business here, we're going to negotiate prices, we don't. And up until recently, drug companies could charge any price they wanted for any reason, sunny outside, raining outside, or double the price, it doesn't matter. No explanation needed, it's just to make as much money as they possibly can. We're beginning, beginning to make some progress on that. We passed the bill called the Inflation Reduction Act which included in it an important provision which will allow the federal government through Medicare to begin negotiating widely used drugs. So they're going to sit down with the drug companies and say, sorry, you can't charge us 10 times more, you're charging Canadians this, you're charging the French people that, that's what you're going to charge us. That will lower prices. It's a step forward, we've got to go a lot further than just 10 drugs. But it's a step forward, we can probably, the other thing of important steel that you should know is that if somebody has a chronic problem and takes a lot of drugs, right now the cap, we move forward in that bill to put a cap on what seniors can spend out of pocket at 3,500 by 2025 it's going to go down to 2,000 dollars. You with me? So that means no senior in America will have to pay more than 2,000 dollars. Now I want to see that the president mentioned if you saw his state of the union address. They use that number to cover all Americans. And that would be a huge step forward. Imagine if nobody in America had to spend more than $2,000 out of pocket with description drugs. That would be a good thing, yes? Okay, so that's kind of what we're working on. It's going to be a real fight because the drug companies are extremely powerful. They are unlimited, they are all right now. We're not going to let them. They are very powerful. Okay, other questions, I see a hand way back down. Yes, I'm a retired nurse. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's get you a mic. Sorry. Thank you. I'm a retired nurse and it's at one point we got onto the pharmaceutical companies to lower price, to allow generic drugs. And what they did was they stopped making them because they said they couldn't afford to make them anymore. And so we were caught without the medications unless we went somewhere abroad. I've studied it a little bit, I'm not an expert. The pharmaceutical industry, the whole drug industry is unbelievably corrupt and unbelievably opaque in the sense that nobody knows what's going on. It's hidden, all of these things hidden. So you got a drug, I'll give you an example with the generics. The theory is somebody comes, some company comes up with a new drug, a good drug and they get a patent. They say, okay, this is yours for X number of years. Just yours, there cannot be any competition. You make your money back and so forth and so on. But after that time, there can be generics on the market. So what do you think these companies do? They tweak, they change the color of the pill, they change it just a little bit and they say, see we've changed the pill for another 10 years and that's the way to keep generics out. There's a lot of stuff that goes on. The goal of which is to make sure that these guys continue to make huge profits until you do it. Imagine drug companies, I think the top 10 drug companies last year made 100 billion in profits. They're making money, handle with this, pay their CEOs tens of millions of dollars. It's a real racket, it really is. It's a terrible thing. It's something we're working on to try to adjust. By the way, while you're mentioning a nurse, one or the other, issues that we're dealing with. I wanted to say a few words on this. Everybody here should know a couple of facts. Number one, the United States is the only major country on earth, not to guarantee healthcare to all people that's right. So our friend who has family in Canada, somebody ends up in Montreal in a hospital for a month. What's the bill when they come out? Usually that. Nothing. And you know what? In Canada they spend half as much per capita as we do on healthcare. Half as much, why is that? Because you don't have insurance companies and drug companies making huge profits. They spend their money, it's publicly funded, on providing healthcare, is what we should be doing. So aside from everything else, we spend $13,000 for every man, woman, and child on healthcare. Can you believe that? $13,000, that includes Medicare, Medicaid, what employers are paying, what you're paying out of pocket, $13,000. Double what any other country is paying. So that's an overall issue that we are trying to work on. All right, other questions on healthcare? Yeah. I'll wait for the mic. All right, here it comes. Hey Bernie, my name is Erica, and in addition to being a senior, I've been listening to you for 48 years. That is when you first presented when I was in high school. And I work for- And you have this little program across the street. I know, I'm the Director of Volunteer Services at Age Well, which is one of the area agencies on aging. And one of the things that you have an opportunity to advocate for in the bill is that there is a huge need for more money for food and for transportation. Because here's what we see. I have over 700 volunteers that deliver meals on wheels every single day, and there are many other people in here. 700. I have over 700 volunteers that deliver meals. We deliver close to 258,000 meals a year. Where was the statewide? This is the Northwest Quadrant, Addison, Chittenden, Grand Isle, and Franklin County. I have 1,000 volunteers that make it possible for us to support older people to be able to stay in their homes. Because just like this woman was talking about that she can't get help with assisted living, well, if you can't get help for assisted living and you're lonely and you don't have a way to cook, or you don't have a way to get to the grocery store, who are you gonna turn to? You're gonna turn to the area agency on aging, and if you're lucky enough, they're gonna have a volunteer that they can match with you that's gonna go in and help provide those services for you. I will tell you, I am also the director of transportation for our organization, and what I hear constantly is, why are people going to their medical appointments? They can't get there, Bernie. There is not adequate transportation for all the seniors to get to their medical appointments. If they can get to their medical appointments, they can't get their prescriptions. And in the old days, every pharmacy was fully staffed and they could deliver the prescriptions to your house. Now the pharmacies have limited hours, they're cutting their days, they don't have the ability to deliver the prescriptions. So transportation and money for food, nutrition, these are basic, basic things. Erica, our goal is, we got, I believe over 40 co-sponsors on legislation that are double funding for the older women. And that's not a radical idea because over the years, funding for the older Americans, that's not kept up with legislation. My support is not way up, funding is not. So your point is we'll take the transportation, it's special needs, very important. Okay, other questions, yeah. Hi Bernie, I manage the Feast Senior Meals program for the city of Montpelier. Which program? Feast, the city of Montpelier. And I'm a social worker with a history in long-term care and short-term care, rehabilitative care. And I talk to a lot of people in the city of Montpelier and Berlin where we serve, who can't afford to stay in their homes because their property taxes are increasing. Why should property taxes increase for someone on a fixed income? When there are second and third homeowners in our state and there are people selling homes for over $500,000 that aren't being taxed adequately. And can that be a solution that's addressed by cities and towns because the state doesn't have really the power to legislate that? Well, I think it's a national problem. And the issue that you're raising has a lot to do with why the property tax is a major source of funding for education. God didn't create that. Property tax does not fund the military, does not fund a lot of things. It's a regressive tax for just the reason that you get. I don't want to give a long speech about a lot of things, but if you look at the overall tax system in America, what you find is that the effective tax rate of working people, of a truck driver or a nurse, is in fact higher than it is for a billionaire in America. So you've got large corporations out there also that pay very little because they have all the lobbyists they write the tax laws. So what you need is major reform of our whole tax structure in America, which at a time of massive income and wealth inequality. Any of you know that right now, there is more inequality in America than there has been. You've got three people on top who are more wealth in the bottom, half of American society. And these guys manage to avoid paying their fair share of taxes to a whole bunch of schemes that account for some lawyers. So that's what you've got to change. You've got to change the priorities of America, the way to change the tax system. That ain't easy. If you're taking on these guys of enormous power, they like it the way it is, they don't want to pay their fair share of taxes. They rather have some little old lady in my affiliate pay more in taxes than she can afford than them paying their fair share. But that's what we've got to try to do. All right, let me get the people up and ask the first question. Sir, right here. You've got Mike coming up. I also work with the visually impaired and you mentioned that they're going to try to double the funding for all the programs and some of those that affect us. The problem that I've seen and I've been here for over 30 years is that we're a minimum aid state. So even if you, so we haven't seen an increase in over those 30 years, and even if you doubled the funding, we still wouldn't see it. Hopefully you can look at increasing the minimum aid. The chairman of the committee is aware of that. I mean, that raises the whole, you know, we are a small state and very often you'll find legislation out that some of the largest states don't like go minimum funding, that a state has got to receive a certain amount of funding. That's what the benefit states like. Okay, hold on. Thank you. I'm Tom Simmons. I'm the nutrition and wellness director of senior solutions, which the council on aging for southeastern Vermont. We were a little smaller than them. We only do 165,000 meals on wheels every year. But I'd like to piggyback on the tax issue and the volunteer issue. And this may be small, but it's important. A lot of our volunteers are seniors and our fixed incomes themselves. They are putting in our rural routes in the Deerfield Valley, in the West River Valley. They are putting hundreds of miles on their cars every month just to deliver these meals. If they were paid staff, they'd be able to get reimbursed at 67 cents, which is the IRS, which is what is permitted. But because they're volunteers, if we pay them more than 14 cents, which is nothing, we have to issue them a 10.99 and they have to pay taxes on it. That's the IRS rule for volunteers. That's got to change. Well, paying your volunteers 14 cents. No, I'm not. I'm paying them more than I should be. But we've been told. I mean, we've been told straight out. The IRS rule is 14 cents for a volunteer. Anything over that, if you trip the $600 a year mark, you've got to issue a 10.99, they've got to pay income tax on it. And they're putting hundreds of miles on their car every month. This just doesn't make sense. No, it is. These are heroes and heroines. They should not be taxed on their liberty. All right, thank you. Okay, other thoughts? Yeah, ma'am. Hi, Bernie, I'm Vicky Brooker. I'm just thrilled that you're here. Thank you. I was the director of this center for a couple of years and now I'm a grateful senior who visits here a lot. And I recently found out that the SASH program has hired a mental health wellness coordinator. And when I met to meet her, she told me that the program was funded with money that you had obtained. I just want to put in a plug for all mental health funding and services for seniors. I think I know from personal experience that there are many, many of us who suffer from and struggle with mental illness. And I know that it's all interrelated and that isolation creates depression. And so I don't have any answers. I just want to put in a plug to say that's so vital and thank you for your work in that area. Thank you. I got to tell you, mental health is a huge issue. Not just for seniors, it's an issue for young people. Pandemic that we went through has only made a very bad situation worse. I go into schools occasionally and we talk to teachers and guidance counselors. Teachers tell us, you know, we're not teaching English, we're not teaching Spanish half of our times. Trying to mentor the kids and deal with their emotional needs and their parents' handling problems. We're country in trouble. That is no question about that. We don't have enough mental health counselors. What Sash does, which slotted in Burlington at the Cathedral Square, right? Yes. We've worked with them for years. It is common sense. In America, we spend huge amounts of money if you're sick. And God forbid you need an operation in a hospital. No problem coming up with $100,000 to $200,000 we need. But if you need to see a mental health counselor or if you need to see somebody coming into your house to make your bed or to cook a meal, we don't have the funds to do that. That's a distorted and broken system. So Sash has the radical idea about, you know, radical idea that you provide that preventative care that you make sure people are available. How hard is it to imagine that if you're in a senior center complex, senior housing, that you have a nurse on duty who can help people with their prescription drugs. So when somebody is ill, you can deal with them so they don't have to end up in the emergency room or in the hospital. It is a no brainer. As a nation, we spend 5%, 6% of our overall budget on what we call preventative healthcare, keeping people healthy. Other countries spend 12, 15% of their budget. And you keep people out of hospitals, you keep people out of emergency rooms, you keep people out of use expensive drugs. That's the fight we're taking right now. But this mental health, let's thank you for raising it. And I know sometimes people are reluctant and a little embarrassed to talk about it, but mental health is a serious, serious issue. Nobody should be embarrassed talking about it. Who wants to talk about mental health? What are some of the issues, particular issues maybe to seniors or grandkids, maybe dealing with? Yes. Mike? Yes, I want to talk about that, about the fact that I had a nervous breakdown and wasn't able to get jobs for a long time, had to go on disability when I was 68. And I had a husband who was providing me with a good income. I was a stay-at-home mother for many years, but I was also a social worker in long-term care facilities and I have been working on healthcare reform since I was in college in the 1950s. I'm now 87, so I'm older than a lot of you here. And I just wanted to say that our meals program is terribly underfunded and it is awful, but I also want to mention the fact that a state-based Universal Healthcare Act is coming to the Senate and it is in the house and I have contacted you and haven't heard back yet as to whether you will sign on to that. And Beth told me, Beth told me, no, this is in the United States. It's Ed Markey in Massachusetts is going to be introducing it next week. So you need to sign on by Friday. All right. And I know you don't usually sign on, but Beth told me you don't usually sign on. But I wanted to ask you personally, please sign on, we need all the senators we can. Oregon, Washington, California, and Vermont all have state-based groups that are ready to get in there. And even President Biden has said he is in favor of that rather than national. Although, let's get back to mental health issues if you want. Do I see a hand? Over there, over there. Oh, back there. Okay. Hey Bernie, Julia Burgess and the SASH coordinator for actually this building. And I just wanted to personally thank you for the SASH emotional wellness clinician and just let you know like it's, we've only had her on board for a month and she's full capacity with people. And I also- So the need- The need is definitely there. And I also wanna ask you to support SASH for all program and try to expand it throughout the state. And this is the ideas of the SASH program that have for seniors to all families, including kids and doing a lot of that. I think we are, I think we've gotten some money for that from Brown Road, did we? Yes. Yes. Okay. So yes, the answer. Look, we have got to do a lot, lots more in preventative health. That's what SASH is about other programs as well. Other thoughts? Mental health? We wanna move on. All right, what else you got? The housing problem, we know it around, Greg, if you could. Right now, I'm dealing with a disabled person. She's deaf and finding a facility for her is I've checked every state agency. I've gone to them, I don't even call them because they don't answer their phones. They don't answer you. And we are at a standstill now. She's living in her home that has no heat, no water, rats are, because the garbage is piling up and I couldn't find a facility for her. And she's been deaf since child non-dimension. So, there's just no facility for her anywhere at this point. What I would like is, if they're offered, Jake is writing you the information. Yeah, I've written up my coverage in a letter. Okay, good, very good. So we will, we have a very, very good staff that gets on the phone and tries to do bureaucracies and do what we can, can't always succeed. But we have a staff that works very, very hard trying. And you're raising the border issue. We have a major, major housing crisis, we know that. And we're trying to deal with it in Washington and I suspect the legislature and governor are as well. All right, other questions or thoughts? All right, let me just say this. First of all, let me thank all of you for being here today and be all of you who are working with seniors and the disabled. You're doing God's work and we appreciate it very, very much, I think. Sometimes as a nation, we get our priorities very backwards. We get tax breaks, the billionaires, and we forget about the elderly and disabled children. Some of us are trying to reorient those priorities. And I think very often we forget that, unbelievably, in America today, you've got about a quarter of seniors who are trying to get by on $15,000 a year or less. And I'm not quite sure how anybody gets by on $15,000 a year, about half the seniors are trying to get by on $30,000 a year or less, that ain't a lot of money either. So it's hard, but I just want you to know that there are some of us at Markey being one of them and me and others who are trying to change the national priorities, and we're very appreciated, very appreciative of all the work that you are doing. All right, so with that, let me thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you.