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I do not think he wanted to put his neck out, so I am asking more of the heads to give us some of this information if it is possible, and I cannot see why it is not possible.

Dr. WALTER. I think the main reason he is not doing that is not because he is concerned about anyone criticizing him. I think it is because it is complex, and you may have a little more in some category, and a little less in some other. They may be able to work this out in the way of limitations, so it is not a hard and fast rule for each one of these categories.

I think what he was telling you was you might publish something people would misunderstand. I do not think it is because of criticism or anything of that nature. I think he is doing a service.

Mr. PETERSON. Say this person was making $2,500, is he one of those that can come to talk to them to chase down the eligibility? This is what I was trying to get at, just an overview. There is no use in him being bothered with a lot of people who know that they are not eligible, and, personally, am I eligible? I do not know if Elaine here is eligible, she does not know. She said she is not 60 years yet, but I know I am eligible in that respect, because I am 73.

Mr. HALAMANDARIS. In fairness, I think I had better take Dr. Walter off the hook. This is not really his responsibility.

It is the responsibility of some other people who work in your State capital, and with your permission, Mr. Peterson, I will send them a letter to get you some rough ballpark figures.

My advice is that if there is any chance you are eligible, go down and present yourself. In the case of the State of Maryland, they allow you to have $2,500 worth of assets, and they exclude from that your house, if you own a house, regardless of the value, and they exclude any automobile, regardless of the value of that, and assets are defined to mean cash or securities, or the value of an insurance policy which is above $2,500.

As far as income, that does not matter in Maryland, because whatever income you have, they will take and apply it to the particular service you want. If you want nursing home care in the State of Maryland, and skilled nursing, what Dr. Walter called skilled nursing facility, SNF, the rate the State pays for nursing home care is something like $400 a month.

If you have a Social Security check that pays $200 a month, that check will be applied against this $400 bill, so roughly that means that your nursing home bill, $400 a month, will be paid for, half of your Social Security check, and half with the State's money. That is the way the system works.

If you had more income it wouldn't matter.

Again, there are great variables. Each State is different. The income matters in some States, the assets is what are important in other States; income meaning the dollars that you have coming in, assets meaning what you manage to acquire by way of property.

Standards vary, and the only way to be certain is to go to the office and ask: Am I eligible?

Dr. WHITE. You may want to invite people in to talk to some of your groups, and perhaps they can answer questions.

Mr. Peterson, if you would like to have similar kinds of infor

mation on the Medicare program; if you do, we have readymade literature.

Mr. CARL PETERSON. I think we are fairly well off on the Medicare. Mr. PETERSON. Of course, as Dr. White suggested, we would like to have somebody visit your group.

Mr. CARL PETERSON. I would say we have need for information, we are servicing 3,500 senior citizens and we have tried to get information. We did get a start, and if it will get us some of the salary information so we can give them some sign of a ball park figure, so that the poor guy down here is not deluged with a lot of people coming in here, I know I am not eligible, but I can go in there and find out, goodness, why should I, if I know that I am not eligible. This is what I am trying to find out.

Mr. HALAMANDARIS. OK. We will try to get the information for you, and I think we will be able to arrive at some rough ballpark figures, which is all you are asking for.

Dr. Walter warned you of that, and we will do the best we can, and again, my best advice, if you find somebody who says he is poor, send him in there, because he is probably eligible.

Now, do we have any more questions on any subject of aging?

Dr. SELMAN. I want to know what we can do to get free tuition for the elderly for the college.

Mr. HALAMANDARIS. The question is what can we do to get free tuition for the elderly.

Again, when you need something, and you do not have it, you have to look to your elected representative, so you point your finger at me, you do what Elaine Jensen did, grab me by the arm, she said: "Were you paying attention when I was talking? I did not come here just to shoot my mouth off. I was trying to get a message across. Here is the message again, a, b, and c."

You have to break it down fairly simple for those of us who are in Government. Once you have managed to get our attention, generally, you will get some results.

COMMUNITY SCHOOLS LEGISLATION

We e are now working on a comprehensive bill, some legislation sponsored by Senator Frank Church, we call it our community schools bill, which will make available community facilities, the schools we use by day, and lie vacant by night, so they can be used by senior citizens, the schoolbuses we do not use by night, could be used, the ones we do not use in the summertime, again, could be used to some greater purpose. You were making some comment to this point, Dr. Selman, when we first came in the other day, it makes little sense when we have a valuable resource not to use it full time. For us to neglect the valuable resource and wisdom that all of you have obtained by the mere fact of living, to be 60 or 65, is ludicrous and a ridiculous situation, and I give you my promise, I will give you my efforts to move along Senator Church's community schools bill, and I have some belief that we will be successful in getting that enacted later this year. Senator Church has been pushing for it very hard, and I see some signs of agreement within the Congress to enact the legislation, so I can offer you some hope there.

Dr. WHITE. There are a couple of things.

I was talking to President McDonald, and he indicated he would like to take steps in this direction, but there was a recent study, I would assume the information is available now by the Adult Education Association, on the number of places providing services to older people, and as you know, some private schools do provide reduced tuition to older people, but I think as far as the State is concerned, we might work together with the colleges and with some of the institutions that have some of the same interests, and maybe again go to the board of regents with a concerted kind of effort with all of us joining together, with this information, and to show what is being done, and can be done. That is another suggestion that we might approach, away from the Federal aspect of it.

Mr. HALAMANDARIS. One last thing, we all tend to look at life from our own narrow tunnel of vision, so when you ask me about a problem in responding to legislation, I think of the Federal angle.

Just as important is the State angle, and Dr. White mentioned it. You have a State legislature, and the State legislature can promulgate legislation just the way the Federal Congress can, and Peg Fayé just pointed out to me that in her own State of Hawaii, that they have recently enacted just this kind of legislation, so if you were over there, and you were a senior citizen as most of you are, you could go to school free, just because Hawaii had enacted this into legislation.

If all of you get together and approach your elected representatives, your State senators, and those members of the House of Representatives of your State, it is possible you could get a similar bill passed through the Utah State Legislature.

Senior citizens are becoming more and more important. You saw some sign of that today.

My advice is: become increasingly politically active, and learn what is happening, and perhaps run for office yourself.

That very nice lady in Oregon, Mrs. McCall-mother of the Governor-was going to run for the governorship, but dropped out after she had dramatized the point that we are treating our senior citizens very shabbily. My advice to you, call the members of the State legislature and see what you can do with getting legislation introduced on the State level, and let Senator Moss and others worry about the Federal level.

Dr. WHITE. Maybe you tried this already, but another possible approach is to involve the community school people, because they do have the backing already of the State legislature, and they would just expand that concept and get some leverage that way.

Dr. SELMAN. Thank you.

Mr. LAPTHROP. My name is Fred Lapthrop, and I understand the way we work it, we are a nonpartisan militant group, and we go up there to the mass meetings with all of the people that we can get from our group, and almost take control.

Thank you.

Mr. HALAMANDARIS. That is strong language, but, you know, there is a group in Philadelphia, that call themselves the Gray Panthers. These senior citizens believe you need political action if we are ever going to get anything changed.

The days of going down to St. Petersburg and lying in the sun are all over. Just because you reach 65 does not mean you stop thinking, or you stop caring. It just means that the society has not realized your potential, and if all of you band together, you will be a sizable force, I think you should do just that.

Until the senior citizens of this country do that, I do not think things will change very much.

Mr. PETERSON. This might be of interest to some of the others.

In our newsletter, which sometimes takes as much as four or five pages, this next one will be a statement from the two aspiring Senators, and also a statement from the council advocating that all senior citizens go to the grassroots and go to their mass meetings.

It will give a detailed statement of where the mass meetings are for each political party, starting on the 20th, the 20th of next month. I believe this will give us quite a bit of clout as far as we are concerned. We are not political as far as the council is concerned. I am, of course, a Democrat. We are not supposed to have any Republicans in Carbon County. We have one right here. My wife is chairman. I see another one over there.

Mr. HALAMANDARIS. It does not really matter. We do not concern ourselves about the party affiliation. You want to get people working for you that represent your interests.

I think this Watergate business proved one thing, that a lot of us when we get back in Washington, forget we are working for you. You are the ones that pay the taxes, April 15 was not so long ago, and those of you who put the check in the mail know you are paying a great deal, and in many instances, you feel that you are paying far too much for what you are getting.

You have to have some say in the choice that we are working for you, and we need your direction.

Are there other questions?

Dr. WHITE. This is still a comment on that question Dr. Selman raised. I feel we can get it through the State legislature, and it will have to be a coordinated effort of most of the councils on aging in the State.

If you want that, and nobody puts it in as a priority, and I would imagine the best way is to try to work this through the Division on Aging, and try to see if you can get a coordinated effort here, so you are all saying the same thing.

In this way, they will be more receptive. I know my experience with the State government that if only one area of the State wanted it, and the rest of the State is not too enthusiastic, it is hard to get it through, but if you all go in and say this is one of our priorities, you can get it through.

Mr. HALAMANDARIS. That is good advice. Well, then, are there any further comments from any of the gentlemen?

Well, I thank you very much, and this meeting is adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.

[Whereupon, the hearing adjourned at 2:45 p.m.]

APPENDIX

STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY THE HEARING AUDIENCE

During the course of the hearing a form was made available by Senator Moss to those attending who wished to make suggestions and recommendations but were unable to testify because of time limitations. The form read as follows:

Dear Senator Moss: If there had been time for everyone to speak at the hearing on "Barriers to Health Care for Older Americans," in Price, Utah, April 20, 1974, I would have said:

The following reply was received:

LAVEE P. WATT, WELLINGTON, UTAH

I have taken many older people to see a doctor. It is absolutely pathetic at the time these people are required to wait for service. Can any of these agencies provide a doctor who could see only the elderly? They don't have the patience or stamina to sit so long and therefore neglect themselves. Since this field is so important why not have a doctor appointed and paid. Great amounts of money are being spent to correct, why not to prevent and give confidence to these people that they are being cared for.

I am interested in reducing the deductible. The amount is too great for old people. They are frustrated by the way this is figured and handled.

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