Report Shows Blatant Disregard For LGBT Senior Healthcare

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders) have just released Outing Age 2010: Public Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Elders, an update to the Task Force’s groundbreaking Outing Age report issued in 2000. Like its predecessor, Outing Age 2010 presents an in-depth look at public policy issues and challenges facing millions of aging LGBT people in the United States.

Among many things, the report shows that several federal programs that aim to serve elders blatantly exclude or otherwise discriminate against LGBT elders. For example, Social Security pays survivor benefits to widows and widowers but not to surviving spouses of same-sex life partners. Medicaid regulations protect the assets and homes of married spouses but offer no such protection to same-sex partners. Tax laws discriminate against same-sex partners, costing the surviving partner thousands of dollars a year. In addition, the report spotlights the continuing widespread existence of bias in the provision of services to LGBT elders.

Report findings include:

• Federal and state bans on employment discrimination must be established to prevent LGBT elder poverty.
• The definition of family must be expanded to recognize same-sex couples and extended family kinship structures in the designation of federal benefits such as Social Security, Medicaid and Veterans Benefits.
• The Family and Medical Leave Act must be expanded to cover LGBT caregivers and their family and friends, regardless of whether they are related by blood or marriage.
• Public and private health care providers must be trained in cultural competency for working with LGBT older adults.

Outing Age 2010 also notes two key impending areas of focus for LGBT aging advocates: the reauthorization of the Older Americans Act in 2011 and the White House Conference on Aging, slated for 2015.

While there is new openness at the federal level, advocates must continue to press for the establishment and enforcement of nondiscrimination regulations as well as the creation of new research and resources to address the very specific needs of this population.

This article is an excerpt from the original, which was initially published via The Hill’s: The Congress Blog