AARP officials on Tuesday released a list of legislative priorities for health care for the 111th Congress as part of a "characteristically sweeping agenda that focuses on the recession and on health care reform," The Hill reports.

Among the priorities, AARP, which has more than 40 million members ages 50 and older, seeks as much as $50 billion in additional federal Medicaid funds for states as part of an economic stimulus package. AARP also wants lawmakers to prohibit states that take the additional Medicaid funds from reducing long-term care services. In addition, AARP seeks provisions in the stimulus package that would extend unemployment benefits, maintain nutrition programs, allocate as much as $50 billion to develop a national electronic health record system and encourage more participation in the nursing field.

AARP also seeks a number of Medicare reforms, such as a system that bases reimbursements to health care providers on quality, a reduction or elimination of the asset test for prescription drug benefit subsidies and a proposal to allow the federal government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies on prices for medications (Young, The Hill, 1/6). Other priorities for AARP include efforts to reduce health care costs and improve quality; encourage increased use of comparative effectiveness research on medications and medical devices; promote chronic care coordination, disease management and prevention initiatives; and expand Medicaid and SCHIP (Carey, CQ HealthBeat, 1/6).

Comments
AARP CEO Bill Novelli said, "This is not the time for business as usual," adding, "It is time to demonstrate bold leadership, to take our agenda to the people and our nation's leaders, to demand change and to work hard to bring about that change" (The Hill, 1/6). Novelli cited the need for health care reform to address the increased cost of Medicare and other entitlement programs. "The way to deal with entitlements is to first of all deal with health care," he said (Kivlan, CongressDaily, 1/6).

John Rother, executive vice president for policy and strategy at ARRP, added, "The economic crisis is promoting the need for health reform because more people are at risk."

Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president for social impact at AARP and director of Divided We Fail, said, "The economy's effect on people who are in the work force, near-retirees, and retirees is drastic; the time for solutions is now" (The Hill, 1/6).

Survey
In related news, AARP on Tuesday released a survey that examined the effect of the current economic recession on the health care decisions of U.S. adults. The survey, conducted in December 2008, included responses from 1,097 adults ages 45 and older.

According to the survey, 55% of adults have concerns about their ability to pay their health care bills over the next year. In addition, more than 80% of adults said that they strongly or somewhat agree that the federal government should provide financial assistance to residents who lose their jobs to allow them to maintain their health insurance or purchase affordable coverage during the recession, the survey found (CQ HealthBeat, 1/6).