March 23rd marks the one year anniversary of the Elder Justice Act (the EJA). For the first time, last March, Congress passed a comprehensive federal elder abuse prevention law. This was an important victory for aging advocates, but now a year later, the law is powerless due to a lack of funding.
A year later, vulnerable older adults who should be protected by the law are confronted with the same threats they faced a year ago. This is a sad reality given the increasing severity of elder abuse in this country. According to a recent National Institute of Justice study, almost 11% of people ages 60 and older (5.7 million) faced some form of elder abuse in the past year. A 2009 study estimated that 14.1 percent of non-institutionalized older adults nationwide had experienced some form of elder abuse in the past year. Financial exploitation of older adults is increasingly alarming. A 2009 report by the MetLife Mature Market Institute and the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (NCPEA) estimates that seniors lose a minimum of $2.5 billion each year.
Elder abuse, neglect and exploitation is a serious and widespread social justice problem and a major health issue.
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One Year Anniversary of the Elder Justice Act
4 comments:
So what has it accomplished?
I was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, we're no better off.
The Elder Justice Act did nothing to address the problems about which most of us complain. That is why I did not support it. Unfortunately, it was supported by many who did not read the act and ask questions such as "what does this Act do to prevent the financial exploitation of someone during their final hours, while in a hospital, under a DNR order and on a morphine drip?" What it does is provide more federal $$$ for the same old same old.
I don't know that it's accomplished anything, Thelma!
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