Karin Miller

High on the Tennessee AARP’s agenda this year is the expansion of funding for home and community-based care for the state’s aging or disabled residents.

“We are literally last in the nation in providing alternatives to nursing home care through Medicaid funding,” said Karin Miller, director of communications for the Tennessee AARP. “We’re trying to expand those opportunities for people to stay in their home as opposed to having to go into a nursing home.”

The Tennessee AARP regional impact team met Wednesday to discuss plans for the coming year. About 30 people attended the event, including local chapter members, representatives of the Southeast Tennessee Area Agency for Aging and Disability, the Tennessee Association of Adult Day Services and the TVA Retirees Association’s Chattanooga chapter.

TennCare now has 3,700 slots to fund enrollees who need home or community-based care instead of a nursing home, and the AARP wants to expand that number by 2,300, Ms. Miller said.

The group’s director of advocacy, Patrick Willard, spoke at the meeting about issues of identify theft for seniors.

Last year the Tennessee AARP pushed the Credit Security Act, which forced businesses and nonprofit associations to stop requiring people to use their Social Security numbers as a means of identification, Mr. Willard said.

In the current legislative session, the state AARP will put forth legislation to address government use of the identification number in hopes of making the number unnecessary for voter eligibility, he said.

He cited an event in December in Davidson County, Tenn., in which someone broke into the county’s Election Commission offices and stole a laptop containing the Social Security numbers of 337,000 people.

Ms. Miller also spoke about the group’s campaign, called “Divided We Fail,” which aims to bring members of both major political parties together on the issues of health care and financial security, she said.

“We need to get everyone from both sides of the aisle together and come up with some common-sense solutions,” Ms. Miller said.

BY THE NUMBERS

AARP members in Tennessee: 711,000

Amount of state funding for nursing homes in 2006: More than $942 million

Amount of state funding for home and community-based care in 2006: About $10.8 million

SOURCE: Tennessee AARP