Senate Committee Approves Bills Related to Health and Seniors

On June 28, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved, by voice vote, the Older Americans Act Amendments of 2006 (S. 3570), legislation to reauthorize the Older Americans Act (OAA) (P.L. 106-501). The House passed its reauthorization of the OAA, the Senior Independence Act of 2006 (H.R. 5293), on June 21 (see The Source, 6/23/06).

During consideration of the bill, the committee approved a substitute amendment sponsored by Chair Mike Enzi (R-WY) that would, among other provisions, target services to promote home and community-based care placements and avoid institutional care; create a National Center on Senior Benefits Outreach and Enrollment and an Office of Elder Abuse Prevention; and emphasize disease prevention and evidence-based health promotion services, including a focus on nutrition education and services, physical activity, mental health care, and improved health literacy. The bill does not include the House provision requiring Senior Community Service Employment Program grantees to move 30 percent of participants in the program move into private, unsubsidized employment within five years.

“This bill will help ensure that our nation’s older Americans, including 78.2 million aging Baby Boomers, are healthy, fed, housed, able to get where they need to go and safe from abuse and scams,” said Sen. Enzi.

In the same session, the committee approved, by voice vote, the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act (S. 757). Sponsored by Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), the bill contains a number of findings, including:

• approximately 3 million women in the U.S. are living with breast cancer, about 2 million of which have been diagnosed, and an estimated 1 million who do not yet know that they have the disease;
• a woman who lives into her 80s in the U.S. has a one in seven chance of developing invasive breast cancer in her lifetime;
• about 90 percent of women who develop breast cancer do not have a family history of the disease;
• to date, there has been only a limited research investment to expand the scope or coordinate efforts across disciplines or work with the community to study the role of the environment in the development of breast cancer; and
• in order to understand the effect of chemicals and radiation on the development of cancer, multi-generational, prospective studies are probably required.The bill authorizes $30 million per year for FY2006-2011 for the creation of up to eight Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Centers of Excellence to study environmental factors that might cause breast cancer.

  The committee also approved, by voice vote, the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers who deliver Infants Early (PREEMIE) Act (S. 707). Sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), the bill contains a number of findings, including:

• premature birth is a serious and growing problem as the rate of preterm birth increased 27 percent between 1982 and 2002 (from 9.4 percent to 11.9 percent);
• premature babies who survive may suffer lifelong consequences, including cerebral palsy, mental retardation, chronic lung disease, and vision and hearing loss;
• preterm and low birthweight babies were estimated to have accrued $15.5 billion in medical care costs in 2002; and
• African American babies are more likely to be preterm, and prematurity or low birthweight is the leading cause of death for African American infants.Based on these findings, the PREEMIE Act would direct the National Institutes of Health to expand and intensify research activities, and to conduct a study on the causes of low birthweight and prematurity with the Institute of Medicine. The bill would authorize “such sums as are necessary” for educational outreach to health professionals and the public for FY2005-2009.