More than 240 LeadingAge members headed to Capitol Hill today for our annual Lobby Day, the last and critical event of the Leadership Summit in Washington, DC. The day kicked off with a visit from Senator Mike Braun (R-IN), who joined LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan and hundreds of our members for breakfast.

“Our purpose is noble; it is time for policymakers, the media, and the public to recognize aging as a stage of life and to demonstrate through their actions that older adults and those who serve them deserve to be supported,” Board Chair Roberto Muñiz said on the Summit’s second day, following up on Sloan’s opening day guidance urging Summit attendees to use their time in Washington to “speak up and speak out” while on the Hill.

“You are the experts in what you do; they [lawmakers] are not,” Sloan said. “You […] recognize the urgency of ensuring that members of Congress understand what is happening OUTSIDE of Washington and the enormous headwinds your organizations are facing.”

Representing long-term care providers in 41 states nationwide, our members took part in 161 confirmed meetings—104 in House offices and 57 in Senate offices—throughout the day to discuss critical aging services issues to ensure older adults and families can access the care and services they need to age with dignity, including:

• Enact robust affordable senior housing funding in Fiscal Year 2025.
• Expand hospice services to ensure access and caregiver support and fortify the hospice workforce.
• Ensure MA beneficiaries have equitable access to care and services, while also preserving providers’ financial viability.
• Stop the federal nursing home minimum staffing mandate and fix the nursing home CNA training lockout.

“It’s simply wonderful to see hundreds of LeadingAge members head to the Hill with such purpose and enthusiasm,” said Linda Couch, senior vice president of policy and advocacy. “Lobby day is about optimism—that the federal resources and programs providers rely on to meet older adults’ needs can and must be improved upon by Congress—and also about reality at a time when providers can ‘tell it like it is’ to impress upon offices the need for swift solutions to persistent challenges threatening access to services. We’re so grateful for our members and their understanding of how important advocacy is to improving aging services resources and programs.”

If you were not able to attend the Leadership Summit or participate in Lobby Day this year, you can still access our new member resources and take action today. We urge you to start planning to invite your members of Congress to your community during the August congressional recess. Together, we will continue to support and strengthen the wide variety of aging services programs necessary to meet the needs of older adults wherever they call home.

To read members’ accounts of their in-person advocacy experiences, see the article, In the Words of Advocates: Lobby Day Stories from Members.