About 75 seniors gathered at the Benjamin Church community room on Monday morning to enjoy some breakfast and mingle with lawmakers, including Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, Congressman Gabe Amo, state Senators Pam Lauria and Linda Ujifusa, and Representative Susan Donovan.

The event was sponsored by the legislators, and following introductions by Senior Center Director Donna Wilson, each took the opportunity to speak.

Considering that the federal delegation was leaving the event to go back to Washington, DC to negotiate terms in hopes of avoiding a government shutdown, they were in lockstep with their messaging.

“The Trump administration is going after the benefits that are so critical to your life,” said Reed. “Medicare, Medicaid, and also the SNAP program which provides nutrition for children and adults and seniors. And we are doing our best to push back because if we don't, if these changes go in effect 40,000 Rhode Islanders will lose their health care coverage. And everyone will be affected, as insurance premiums will go up dramatically.”

“This is a big week in Washington,” said Whitehouse. “The big bill that the Republicans passed on a purely partisan basis explicitly takes about a trillion dollars out of Medicaid….And the people upon whom those cuts are going to land are going to be the providers, the doctor's practices, the nursing homes, the hospitals….So we are working very hard to try to undo that damage. The second is Medicare. The big bill didn't talk about Medicare. There was no obvious cut in the bill to Medicare. But here's what they did. They raised the debt by $4.1 trillion.

“And when you raise the debt by that much in a bill, it triggers another law, which is called the sequester law, and that law creates mandatory automatic cuts to programs across the board and one of those programs up for cuts is Medicare.”

“I’ve been very vocal about the impact of food insecurity hunger in this country,” said Amo. “And a SNAP program that will have less money than it had before, for the people who need it the most. So in addition to all of the health care issues, especially the impact on nursing homes, which could lead to the closure of one out four nursing homes.

“As you heard from Senator Whitehouse, there is an aggressive attack on social security,” Amo continued. “I’ve been accused of fear mongering here, but it's so important that we illuminate how important social security is, because if we say nothing, they will make irreparable harm to what I believe is a bedrock program in our country.”

“I'm a nurse practitioner,” said Lauria. “So a lot of what I do in the state house is informed by my day job. And I'm sure there are people in this room that have had trouble to get an appointment whether they need a new primary care provider or get in with a specialist…we're really working on that to try to keep the providers that we have, but also to encourage others to come and to stay and to work in Rhode Island.”

“What's happening at the federal government is knocking us back on our heels,” said Ujifusa. “We have to fill a lot of holes….We can either let them just cut the programs. We can tax people more to pay for the programs, or we can borrow….I will agree with my Republican colleagues who like to emphasize fraud, waste, and abuse. It might surprise you that there is a bit of that in the state government and I will be introducing bills to go after that.”

I just wanted to do a quick update on some of the legislation that affects us older Rhode Islanders and that I'd like you to know about,” said Donovan. “As chair of the Health and Human Services Committee for the House of Representatives, a lot of the legislation that affects us seniors especially comes before my committee. So I've learned a lot a lot more than I really would want to know about the ins and outs of what's going to happen to us and what's happening to us at at the moment.

“We have increased the eligibility for the Medicare savings program. We have increased property tax credits for older adults. We've increased the reimbursement rates for our home care providers. And now we have more choices to age in our own homes. And we have passed laws to protect older adults from the scams that we know are out there.”