On Friday, June 2, 2023, Board members of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) met with White House officials and Senate staffers to advocate for key policy priorities, especially Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS).
NAELA Board members Marielle Hazen (PA – Federal Advocacy Co-chair), Shari Polur (KY – Federal Advocacy Co-chair), and Judy Flynn (MA – Founding State Advocacy Co-chair) joined NAELA staff in Washington, D.C., to advocate for improvements and expansion of HCBS, a longtime policy priority of the organization.
The NAELA delegation met with members of the White House Domestic Policy Council focused on Medicaid and Medicare issues. They also met a healthcare policy fellow in the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D – MA). In these meetings, NAELA advocated for reducing barriers to HCBS through more proactive measures around spend down rules, eliminating the discrepancy in presumptive eligibility between institutional and home/community care, Master Plans on Aging, nursing home reforms to prevent unlicensed practice of law vendors being used to support resident Medicaid applications, and other topics drawing on NAELA member thought leadership.
NAELA urges members to engage on these issues through their chapter’s state advocacy work, and to engage with the national organization through its federal, state, and litigation committees, and by learning more about issue areas across NAELA educational sections.