Trump Expected to Issue Executive Order Reducing Reliance on Foreign Prescription Drugs, PPE

 According to the The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) Weekly Update for Week Ending July 11, 2020,  White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows announced that President Trump would soon be signing three executive orders regarding prescription drug prices.  While he did not provide any further information, the Washington Post published an article about the likely subject matter of at least one the orders.

It is anticipated that one of the orders will be to shift drug and medical production to this country by suddenly cutting off federal agencies from those offshore supply chains.  The order is expected to apply to government programs and agencies that directly purchase drugs and medical supplies, according to lobbyists and industry watchers. They may include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Strategic National Stockpile, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. 

The order would broaden existing federal requirements for government agencies to prioritize buying supplies for medicines deemed “essential” from U.S. manufacturers, rather than companies in China or elsewhere around the world. According to the Post, labs struggled to ramp up coronavirus testing, and hospitals and nursing homes ran short of personal protective equipment over the spring. These failures hampered the national and state responses to the pandemic, leaving the United States with far more infections and deaths than any other country. Even now, shortages of protective medical gear are looming as outbreaks grow in the South. One big reason is because these supplies often come from other countries, which were also dealing with outbreaks. 

The nation’s pharmaceutical industry has pushed back against the potential order, arguing that the United States should not shut itself off from a global supply chain. There is concern that it could make it even harder to obtain supplies critical to combating the pandemic, such as personal protective equipment, testing supplies and even medications to treat coronavirus patients.

“Turning our backs on trading partners during a crisis could damage our relationships long after this pandemic ends,” the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhARMA) and dozens of other business and trade groups wrote in a letter to the administration.

Other critics say that revising the government’s purchasing rules will not provide a quick solution to the supply shortages of the current pandemic. “Making Buy American provisions tighter during the current crisis would likely do more harm than good,” according to William Reinsch and Jack Caporal of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Eighty percent of the nation’s active pharmaceutical ingredients come from overseas — and China is its No. 2 supplier, behind only Canada.

When it comes to generic drugs, a “substantial portion” of U.S. imports come either directly from China or third countries such as India, which use active ingredients sourced from China.

Moreover, U.S. dependence on China for drugs and drug products is growing. Its imports of Chinese medical equipment increased 78 percent between 2010 and 2018.

Medicare Advantage Plans Receive Additional Enhancements

The Trump Administration announced a broad array of changes to Medicare Advantage plans last week in hopes the changes will further pressure providers to improve senior care.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) officials said the “innovations” will include everything from customizing plans based on beneficiaries’ chronic conditions and socioeconomic status to increasing access to telehealth services. CMS also wants to improve incentives for individual plans improve the health of seniors.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement that Medicare Advantage was launched over 13 years ago, and was due for a facelift. "The American healthcare system is very different today than it was thirteen years ago when the Medicare Advantage and Part D programs were launched in their current forms, but due to the slow pace of change in government, these programs have not been fully updated to reflect today’s realities,” said Verma. The new CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) will ideally spur greater competition among plans, while also “creating pressure to improve quality and lower costs in order to attract beneficiaries.” 

“Today’s announcements are prime examples of how CMMI can test policies to modernize CMS programs and ensure that our seniors can access the latest benefits,” Verma said.

The changes will be tested out as part of the Value Based Insurance Design model for 2020. Eligible plans in all 50 states will be able to apply for the innovations, according to a CMS fact sheets available here and here. Starting in 2021, they’ll also start testing the inclusion of hospice benefits as part of Medicare Advantage. CMS said it is also planning to extend the performance period of its VBID model another three years, to 2024, to sufficiently evaluate the impact of these changes. 

These new innovations supplement prior changes which, among other things, embrace Aging-in-Place:

2019 Medicare Advantage Plans Incorporate Long Term Care, Aging in Place Benefits 

Trump Administration Embraces Aging In Place- 2019 Advantage Plans Permitted to Incorporate Long Term Care

US Law Takes Grand Step to Protect Grandfamilies- Grandparents and Others Rearing Children Of Family Members Receive Support

ID 27960544 © Monkey Business Images | Dreamstime.com

In the United States today, children are increasingly being reared and even formally adopted by family members—most often, their grandparents. Many of these grandparents have been caring for their grandchildren as a result of the opioid crisis, taking on unanticipated or unexpected caregiving roles, sometimes even as their own children work through their addictions and treatments.  Given the death and disability associated with the opioid crisis, and the related or unrelated increasing suicide rate, families are increasingly forced by circumstance to make sure that children stay within their birth family and avoid the alternative of the foster care system. 

No wonder; more than half of the children in the child welfare system have endured four or more adverse childhood experiences, leaving them 12 times more likely to have negative health outcomes – substance use disorders, mental health problems, and engaging in aggressive or risky behaviors – than the general child population.  According to the 2017 State of Grandfamilies in America Annual Report, compared to those in care with non-relatives, children cared for by relatives have more stable and safe childhoods and a greater likelihood of having a permanent home. They have better mental and behavioral health, and are more likely to report always feeling loved.  Grandparents and other relatives who step in to care for children play an important role in preventing trauma, which children in the child welfare system experience at starkly higher rates than the general population.

Indeed, it is not only grandparents who are stepping forward to rear the children of parents with substance abuse or other issues: brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and other extended family members, kinship caregivers, are stepping forward to fill the void created by the death or impairment of a child's parent. But, grandparents are by far the most common to bear the burden; they play the key child-rearing role in the lives of 2.5 million children—that’s 3% of all U.S. children.  All told, 7.8 million children, - that's 10% percent of all U.S. children- are being reared by family members who are not their birth parents.

The number of grandparents who report that they are raising their grandchildren, is reportedly 2.7 million, but it is likely that the actual number is far greater, as many families don't or won't disclose that parent's are unable or unwilling to rear their own children.  Some grandparents quietly assume the role of parent, often without consideration of the financial, legal, or medical challenges they may later encounter. 

This form of kinship care is so prevalent, it has its own name- the grandfamily, a freshly minted moniker born of necessity and tragic circumstance, describing the now common familial sacrifice and commitment.

Kathleen Kelly Halverson, writing for Adoption.com, in an excellent article,  properly characterized the meaning of such sacrifice:

"These grandparents are not just saving their own families: They are literally saving our country as well..."

That is not exaggeration or hyperbole; Generations United, a national nonprofit group, has estimated that grandparents and other relatives who are raising children informally save taxpayers $4 billion each year, but what value can be placed on a single child that is loved, supported, and healthy- physically, mentally, and emotionally- let alone the literally several million children, reared free from impairment, free from the torment of abuse, and able to care for themselves and others?  

And yet, these grandparents and kinship caregivers struggle financially, physically, and emotionally,  and, too often, silently. Grandparents struggle with their own health concerns and their own physical limitations, as they dip into retirement funds to ensure that their grandchildren are properly reared. Some grandparents may not even know that resources and support are available to them.  

The past year has seen the U.S. make a grand step forward in supporting these grandfamilies and kinship caregivers. The Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act ("Supporting Grandparents Act"), which cleared the Senate unanimously in June, and was signed into law by President Trump in July, supports these guardian-saviors by creating a federal task force to establish a one-stop shop of resources for grandparents who are raising grandchildren. 

“Grandparents are increasingly coming to the rescue,” when addiction, overdose or other circumstance deprives a child pf parents, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. Collins cosponsored the bill with the committee's ranking member, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.

These grandparents are “replacing traumatic pasts with loving and hopeful futures,” Collins said. Stepping up for a second round of parenting, especially when the family is dealing with the fallout of opioid addiction, comes with a barrage of decisions and challenges, such as “delaying retirement, navigating school systems, bridging the generational gap, working through the court system to secure custody and finding mental health services,” said Casey. Grandparents need a one-stop resource that provides contacts and information that will help “in that moment of crisis in that family,” said Casey.

The Supporting Grandparents Act has the backing of 40 advocacy groups for older adults and children, including AARP and the American Academy of Pediatrics.   A federal advisory council will include a grandparent, an older relative raising a child, together with experts from several federal agencies; it is charged with locating established resources across the country, investigating best practices, researching how to most capably rear children, and finding useful information for older relatives rearing and supporting children, with a special focus on those affected by opioid addiction.

Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s executive vice president and chief advocacy and engagement officer, praised Congress for taking action, saying, “[t]he federal advisory council will identify, promote, and disseminate information about this vital support and the resources available to help grandparents create and maintain a stable home environment for their grandchildren so that they can thrive.”

The Supporting Grandparents Act follows passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act ("Family First Act"), which became law in February.   The Family First Act is landmark child welfare law that works from the principle that children do best in families.  The Family First Act addresses an array of services and programs, but specifically provides financial and non-financial support for kinship caregivers, such as grandparents rearing grandchildren.  

The Family First Act provides first time federal reimbursement for prevention services and programs.  Federal child welfare dollars can be used for up to 12 months of services and programs to prevent children from entering foster care by supporting the triad of generations in grandfamilies - children, kinship caregivers and parents. The children qualify for services if they are “candidates” for foster care, meaning at imminent risk of entering foster care and can safely remain at home with parents or with kinship caregivers.  Children whose adoption or guardianship is at risk of disruption or dissolution qualify. 

Kinship caregivers or parents of the children also qualify for services if they are needed to prevent the children’s entry into care. Children and families can receive these services more than once if the child is again identified as a candidate for foster care at a later date.  The prevention services and programs include:

• mental health treatment;
• substance abuse prevention and treatment, and;
• in-home parent skill-based supports.

States, too, receive assistance in the form of federal reimbursement for up to 50% of their expenditures to provide kinship navigator programs that meet certain evidence-based requirements. This federal support is available regardless of whether the children for whom the services are being accessed meet certain income eligibility requirements for Title IV-E foster care funding.

The Family First Act seeks to improve licensing standards for relative foster family homes.  The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) was required to identify a model of family foster home licensing standards by October 1, 2018, which the Secretary dutifully published August 1, 2018, sixty days sooner than required, a fact notable because the speed with which the federal government is working to reform existing law speaks loudly of its commitment to change.  You can, compare and contrast the federal licensing standards with those suggested by advocacy groups, such as the Model Family Foster Home Standards developed by the National Association for Regulatory Administration (NARA), Generations United and the American Bar Association.

By April 1, 2019, each state must report to HHS on the following:

• are the state standards in accord with the model and if not, why not?
• does the state waive non-safety licensing standards for relatives, as allowed by federal law?
• which standards does the state most commonly waive?
• if the state does not waive, why not?
• how are caseworkers trained to use the waiver authority?
• does the state have a process or tools to assist caseworkers in waiving non-safety standards so they can place quickly with relatives?
• what steps are the state taking to improve caseworker training or the process?

The Family First Act does not leave behind those children unfortunate to have no available kinship caregiver.  Under the new law, if children need to come into the custody of the child welfare system, the law encourages the placement of children in foster care in the least restrictive, most family-like settings appropriate to their needs by not allowing the use of federal funds for inappropriate group placements (effective October 1, 2019 although a state may request a delay for up to two years). Federal funds may only be used for a few specific types of group placements, including a qualified residential treatment program (QRTP).  An important component of the appropriate use of QRTPs is the requirement to facilitate and maintain family connections. To be considered such a program, the program must assist and encourage outreach to the child’s family members, including siblings and close family friends known as ”fictive kin,” and the child’s family must be a part of the child’s treatment.  This requirement includes family-based support for at least six months post-discharge. 

As part of the assessment to determine if a QRTP placement is necessary, the placement preferences of the family must be considered, and children must be placed with their siblings unless it is not in their best interest. If the placement preferences of the family are not followed, the reasons must be documented as part of that assessment process.

A QRTP service provider must:

• Be licensed and be accredited by at least one of three federally approved accreditors: The Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), Council on Accreditation (COA) or The Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO);
• Use a trauma-informed treatment model;Have registered or licensed nursing staff and other licensed clinical staff, available 24/7, on-site according to the treatment model;
• Demonstrate family engagement and outreach, including siblings, in the child’s treatment;
• Provide discharge planning and family-based aftercare supports for at least six months post-discharge.

The accreditation mandate sets a high bar, but helps ensure the delivery of high-quality care. Organizations that earn accreditation have reached beyond the minimum licensing standards and made a long-term commitment to strong governance, program consistency, outcome measurement and continuous improvement throughout their agencies.

Accreditation also requires organizations to undergo an objective review by an independent accrediting body and signifies that they are effectively managing their resources and enhancing the quality of life for the population served.

The Family First Act also seeks to improves interstate placements, a significant step in an increasingly mobile and diffused society.  The Act expedites interstate placement of children in foster care, adoption or guardianship by requiring states to use an electronic interstate case-processing system by no later than October 2027 for exchanging related data and documents.

Further, the Family First Act extends guaranteed funding for child and family services programs. The Act extends funding for five years (fiscal years 2017-2021) for two critical service programs for children and families in the child welfare system-- the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services Program and the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program.  The Act also improves the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, and extends to age 23 the financial, housing, counseling, employment, education, and other appropriate supports and services to former foster care youth. It further extends eligibility to age 26 for Education and Training Vouchers.

Finally the Family First Act reauthorizes the Adoption and Legal Guardianship Incentive Program for five years.  The Incentive Program allows states to receive incentive payments based on improvements in increasing exits from foster care to adoption or kinship guardianship.  These incentives should encourage and aid in transitioning children to qualified grandparents or kinship caregivers from foster care.

Significant challenges demand significant response.  Fortunately, the federal government has risen to the challenge. 

This article is based upon and largely draws from "Trump Signs Bill to Help Grandparents Raising Kids,"  "Trump Signs The Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act Into Law, and those referenced in the body of the article.  This article utilized the Children’s Defense Fund’s detailed summary of the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2016, available at ww.childrensedefense.org, and the Generations United detailed summary of the Act’s grandfamilies’ provisions, available at www.gu.org. 

New Law Helps Seniors Prevent Identity Theft

The National Center for Law & Elder Rights (NCLER) has released a fact sheet explaining a new law that allows consumers to place freezes on their credit information for free. The fact sheet, entitled "New Law Provides Free Security Freezes and Increased Fraud Alert Protection," explains that "[o]n May 24, 2018, the President signed Public Law 115-174 into law. Section 301 of Public Law 115-174 amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act, to establish a new federal right for consumers to implement a security freeze of their credit file." (citations omitted).  

The NCLER fact sheet explains:

A security freeze is the single most effective tool to minimize the risk of identity theft. Identity thieves often target unsuspecting older adults, luring them into giving out personal information. The scammers then use this information to steal the older adults’ identity and ruin a lifetime of positive credit.  As a general rule, security freezes allow a consumer to prohibit the release of their credit report. When a thief applies for credit in the victim’s name, often the intended creditor will attempt to obtain the victim’s credit report or score. The idea behind a security freeze is that, when the credit reporting agency returns no information or a notice that the consumer has frozen the file, the creditor will deny the thief’s application, thereby thwarting the thief and protecting the consumer’s credit reputation as well as the business interests of the creditor.

The new law permits the creation, temporary lifting (or “thaw)” and permanent removal of security freezes from the nationwide consumer reporting agencies. The security freezes are limited to parties seeking the consumer’s information for credit purposes, and do not apply to parties who seek the report for employment, insurance, or tenant-screening purposes. Freezes also do not apply to existing creditors or their agents conducting an account review, collecting on a financial obligation owed them, or seeking to extend a “firm offer of credit” (i.e.,pre-screening). 

The new law also extends the length of  fraud alerts from three (3) months to a full year.  A fraud alert notifies users that the consumer has been or may become a victim of fraud or identity theft. Extending the fraud alert better protects the consumer,

In addition, the new law federalizes or preempts state credit freeze laws.  "The legislation’s preemption extends to any state requirement or prohibition with respect to subject matter regulated by the statute’s provisions relating to security freezes. For example, some state statutes are stronger than the new federal standards by allowing consumers to freeze access to credit reports for employment or insurance purposes." There is also a provision covering when a fiduciary needs to secure a freeze for an individual who is incapacitated.

The new legislation should help seniors avoid identity theft. 

Trump Administration deploys Medicaid Scorecard

In June, the Trump administration embarked on a basic change to Medicaid that for the first time evaluates states based on the health of millions of Americans and the services they use through the vast public insurance program for the poor.  Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services CMS), deployed a “scorecard” that compiles and publicizes data from states for both Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a companion for youngsters in working-class families.

This first scorecard includes state-by-state information showing that, on average, just over half the women on Medicaid are getting care while they are pregnant and after giving birth. Only three in five babies get checkups during their first 15 months, and less than half of children and teenagers have preventive dental visits.These and other measures show wide variations among states, though the initial version does not explicitly rank them. The scorecard also makes public for the first time measures of governments’ performance, such as how long both state and federal health officials take when states request “waivers” to deviate from Medicaid’s ordinary rules.

The Trump administration did not initially attach any consequences to how states make out, and indeed has declined to "rank" states.  That could change over the next few years as CMS refines and adds to the scorecard and members of Congress assess what it shows.  

The Trump Administration, through Seema Verma, head of CMS, explained that the scorecard is intended to initiate a conversation about health outcomes.  Medicaid pays for roughly half the nation’s births, but there is no data or discussion how or why states vary in birth outcomes.

The scorecard is part of a fundamental recalibration of the power relationship in Medicaid between the federal government and states. Since the program was created in 1965 as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, both have shared responsibility for paying for and defining the eligibility and benefits.  Medicaid now covers more than 67 million individuals, while CHIP covers nearly 6.5 million.

In the Trump era, federal health officials have been eager to give states more flexibility over Medicaid’s rules and benefits. Most significantly, the administration told states this year that it will allow them to require people to work or participate in other forms of “community engagement” to qualify for the program.

Such flexibility must be accompanied by heightened federal efforts to keep tabs on how well each state’s Medicaid program is functioning. Verma has said that “With all the flexibility must come accountability. We must be honest with ourselves and honest with our stakeholders . . . about how well we are doing.”

The scorecard’s initial information is based on states that voluntarily report a series of measures about the health of their Medicaid and CHIP enrollees. It shows, for instance, that the percentage of adults on Medicaid with high blood pressure under control as of 2016 varied from 26 percent in Louisiana to 72 percent in Rhode Island. The percentage of children ages 3 to 6 on Medicaid and CHIP who were getting adequate doctors’ care varied from 48 percent in Alaska and Idaho to 86 percent in Massachusetts.

Verma did not specify what additional information will be in later scorecards, but she said federal officials might be interested in how many people on Medicaid are working or volunteering, regardless of whether a state has imposed work requirements in its program.

Trump Administration Embraces Aging In Place- 2019 Advantage Plans Permitted to Incorporate Long Term Care

Starting in 2019, Medicare Advantage plans can cover adult day care services, and in-home help with activities such as dressing, bathing and managing medications, a top Trump administration official said Wednesday, according to an article entitled, "Official Gives Hints About Medicare Advantage LTC Benefits," published in ThinkAdvisor.  The move might make Medicare Advantage Plans (hereafter "Plans") more attractive alternatives to Medicare. 

Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), spoke about the Medicare Advantage program’s new benefits flexibility at a Medicare conference at CMS headquarters, in Baltimore.  CMS announced the changes in April, in a memo sent to potential 2019 Plan issuers. According to the article, while it is not yet clear whether any issuers will add significant supplemental benefits for 2019, "executives from Humana Inc. hinted during their first-quarter earnings call that they might be able to work with partners"  to provide such benefits.

According to the article:

Verma told insurance company executives at the conference that CMS hopes its new “reinterpretation” of the Medicare Advantage program benefits rules will help unleash private-sector innovation and creativity.  She said she has seen the effects of that creativity in her own life.  “Both my parents are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, and they can’t stop talking about them,” Verma said, according to a written version of her remarks distributed by CMS.

A copy of Verma's speech is available here.  

The Old Rules

The Medicare Advantage program lets private insurers use a combination of government money and patient premiums to provide an alternative to traditional Medicare coverage.  In the past, managers of Medicare Advantage have tried to simplify the Plan shopping process, and discouraged Plans from offering benefits that might drive up health care costs, by putting tight restrictions on the kinds of benefits a Plan issuer can offer.  Those restrictions kept Plan issuers from adding benefits such as adult day care benefits, except when the Plans were participating in CMS pilot programs or other special programs.

The New Rules

CMS is employing a new strategy permitting Plans that offer benefits that  compensate for physical impairments, reduce the impact of injuries, or reduce avoidable use of emergency rooms.  Although Verma did not use the terms “long-term care,” or “short-term care,” in her remarks or written speech, the benefits she described are similar to the kinds of benefits many private long-term care insurance policies offer through home health care and community care provisions.  The new approach and resulting rules will also allow Plans to add supplemental benefits tailored to meet the needs of people with specific conditions, including chronic conditions.

The new interpretations are separate from and further expand the chronic care benefits already offered in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 through Medicare. The BBA-2018 provisions expand the range of Medicare supplemental benefits chronically ill enrollees can get starting in 2020.

Requirements for Supplemental Benefits

Of course, the devil is often in the details, and proposed rules were not published. Regardless, the guidance suggests that the additional Plan benefits must ensure the benefits are ”primarily health related,” and "not primarily for a patient’s comfort."  The services covered "must be recommended by a physician or other licensed medical professional as part of a care plan," and the new benefits "must not include items or services used to induce enrollment."  A Plan can choose to help individuals both with basic “activities of daily living,” such as walking, and with the “instrumental activities of daily living,” such as taking medications correctly.

The new interpretation will let a Plan tailor benefits, such as deductibles or wellness options, to fit people with certain medical conditions, such as diabetes.  That interpretation will not, however, allow a Plan to tailor benefits based on an enrollee’s income or poverty level, or any other characteristic other than health status.  Plans must use “objective and measurable” criteria to identify eligible enrollees.

Representative Payee Rules Change

On April 13, President Trump signed the Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act of 2018. The law directs state Protection & Advocacy (P&A) system organizations to conduct all periodic onsite reviews along with additional discretionary reviews. In addition, the P&As will conduct educational visits and conduct reviews based on allegations they receive of payee misconduct. The new law allows the Commissioner to exempt custodial parents of minor children and disabled individuals, as well as spouses, from annual payee accounting.

Representative Payees can complete a Representative Payee Report form online  to account for the Social Security or SSI benefits received or P&As may select a representative payee for review.

The P&A review includes:

• an interview with the individual or organizational representative payee;
• a review of the representative payee’s financial records for the requested beneficiary or sample of beneficiaries served;
• a home visit and interview for each beneficiary included in the review; and
• an interview with legal guardians and third parties, when applicable.

Financial Records Representative Payees Should Have Available for Review

When the P&A schedules the review, the reviewer will request the records needed for each beneficiary. Some common financial documents that representative payees may be asked to provide are:

• a beneficiary budget;
• a beneficiary ledger;
• individual bank statements;
• Collective account bank statements;
• receipts of income;
• account balances;
• bank reconciliation records;
• cancelled checks;
• expense documentation including receipts, bills, and rental agreements;
• how the payee keeps conserved benefits (e.g., checking, savings, etc.); and
• any other financial documents that pertain to a beneficiary’s Social Security and/or SSI benefits.

New Law Helps Prevent Wandering of Impaired Adults and Children; Provides Aid Locating the Lost

Congress recently passed bipartisan legislation to help families locate missing loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease, autism and related conditions.  Kevin and Avonte’s Law (S. 2070), named in honor of two boys with autism who perished after wandering from safety, also supports training for caregivers to prevent and respond to instances of wandering. In response to the massive search and tragic death of Avonte Oquendo in New York City, Lori McIlwain, co-founder of the National Autism Association, assisted Senator Schumer’s office in drafting legislation that would help to prevent similar cases in the future. 

The following press release was sent from the Senate Judiciary Committee:

“The feeling of dread and helplessness families must experience when a loved one with Alzheimer’s or autism goes missing is unimaginable. But when communities are empowered to lend a hand, these terrifying situations can have positive endings and even be prevented altogether. This bill, named for two boys – one from Jefferson, Iowa, and one from New York City, improves access to technologies that advance the search for missing children.  It also expands specialized training for caregivers and first responders to help prevent wandering by vulnerable individuals. I’m grateful for all of those who worked together to get this important bill on the books to honor Kevin and Avonte and prevent future tragedies,” Grassley said.

“Families and caregivers should have the support they need to keep their loved ones with Alzheimer’s, autism, and other developmental disabilities safe. This legislation will help to educate and train caregivers to prevent wandering and provide our law enforcement officers with the tools they need to help recover missing loved ones,” Klobuchar said.
“I’m pleased Kevin and Avonte’s Law will become law so we can help save lives and give families a greater peace of mind. This legislation has a deep personal meaning for me, as I was a caregiver for my grandmother during her battle with Alzheimer’s disease. I want to thank Chairman Grassley for his tireless efforts to support this law that will help families and caregivers reunite with loved ones who wander and disappear. Kevin and Avonte’s Law will truly make a difference in preventing tragedies,” Tillis said.

“Making voluntary tracking devices available to vulnerable children with autism or adults with Alzheimer’s who are at risk of wandering will help put countless families at ease. After Avonte Oquendo ran away from his school and went missing, I learned just how prevalent wandering is among children with autism and other development disorders. I am proud to have continued to speak up for those who cannot and to have co-authored this important bill, which will help Avonte Oquendo’s memory live on, while helping to prevent other children and teens with autism from going missing,” Schumer said.

Information on the introduction of this legislation is available here, a bill summary can be found here, and full text of the legislation can be found here.