Progress in reducing and eliminating discrimination and health disparities is slow: competing domestic, defense, and foreign-policy priorities, uncertainties of the national economy, and a polarized partisan policy environment present challenges to social and health policy advances.
By Jeanette Takamura
Enacted in 1965 before the Social Security Act amendments established Medicare and Medicaid, the Older Americans Act (OAA) declared a national rights-based commitment to the “inherent dignity” of older Americans. Title I of the OAA calls upon federal, state, and local governments and tribes to enable a good quality of life for older persons in their later years (AOA, n.d.). To realize its vision, the OAA relies upon the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the nationwide aging network.