Tennessee State Fact Sheet

AARP State Fact Sheet

Source: AARP.org | January 2009

AARP Tennessee is proud to represent and serve 732,366 AARP members age 50+ in the state. 

We are committed to championing access to affordable, quality health care for all generations, providing the tools needed to save for retirement, and serving as a reliable information source on issues critical to Americans age 50+.  AARP and the AARP Foundation are also working to improve the lives of Tennesseans through vital services, including consumer fraud prevention, driver safety, and tax assistance programs. 

Age 50+ voters:  66 percent of Tennesseans age 50+ voted in the 2008 election, sending a clear message that it's time for elected officials from both sides of the aisle to come together to solve our nation's problems.

AARP:  Working To Improve the Lives of All Tennesseans

Providing Real Relief:  We are working with Congress to support struggling workers by:

• Extending unemployment insurance for the 33,400 Tennesseans hardest hit by the economic crisis.

Reforming Health Care:  We are working with Congress to fix our broken health care system by:

• Making quality health care more affordable for the families and employers in Tennessee now spending nearly $10,000 a year on premiums alone; and
• Ensuring all Americans have access to quality care, especially the 168,379 uninsured Tennesseans age 50-64.

Helping the Most Vulnerable:  We are working with Congress to pass legislation that would help more low-income Americans with access to health care by:

• Strengthening the State Children's Health Insurance Program and Medicaid to ensure that nearly 2,000 Tennessee children and almost 2 million of the most vulnerable Tennesseans get the care they need.

Aging in Place:  We are working with Congress to ensure that the 89 percent of individuals age 50+ who wish to remain in their homes as long as possible can by:

• Expanding access to home- and community-based services through Medicaid – the largest payer of long-term care – which spent only 1 percent of long-term care dollars in Tennessee on home- and community- based-services for older adults and adults with physical disabilities and 99 percent on institutional care for the same population in 2007.

Strengthening Medicare:  We are working with Congress to improve and strengthen Medicare, which provides health care for 995,200 Tennesseans by:

• Putting more emphasis on quality and efficiency, capping out-of-pocket expenses in Medicare, and making prescription drugs more affordable.

Ensuring Social Security:  We are working with Congress to strengthen Social Security for current and future generations by:

• Reaching a balanced and bipartisan solvency agreement that will preserve Social Security's role as a guaranteed floor of income security, as it now does for 1,139,632 Tennesseans currently receiving Social Security benefits.

Promoting Retirement Savings:  We are working with Congress to ensure that every American has a simple, dependable way to save for retirement at work by:

• Enacting Automatic IRA legislation, which would help many of the estimated 957,000 Tennesseans who currently do not have access to a retirement savings plan at work.

Addressing the Housing Crisis:  We are working with Congress to help people facing foreclosure so they can stay in their homes while paying off their debt by:

• Allowing bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgage loans for primary residences, which would help 17,967 Tennesseans age 50+ who are in or near foreclosure.

AARP: Fighting for Tennesseans

More than 103,000 AARP Tennessee activists are working to engage federal and state elected officials in legislating on the issues of greatest importance to Tennesseans age 50+.  Regional Impact Teams coordinate volunteers for advocacy efforts in all of Tennessee's state legislative districts and congressional districts.  These dedicated volunteers mobilize age 50+ Tennesseans to support the passage of critical legislation through volunteer trainings, issue forums, rallies, newsletters, and emails.  They also serve as a direct line of communication between AARP members and federal and state elected officials.

In 2007, AARP, the Business Roundtable, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the Service Employees International Union launched the Divided We Fail (DWF) initiative – a national effort to get elected officials to agree that they would take action to fix health care and financial security. Members of Congress representing portions of each of the state's three grand divisions in East, Middle, and West Tennessee signed the DWF pledge.  Through this work, we engaged over 21,000 Tennesseans in the fight for affordable, quality health care and long-term financial security.

AARP's focus on long-term care in Tennessee brought about major reform in 2008 with the adoption of the Long-Term Care Community Choices Act. Steady advocacy efforts over the past dozen years by AARP volunteers and staff led to the unanimous adoption by the General Assembly of the legislation to restructure Tennessee's Medicaid program for long-term care and expand home and community-based services.

During the past election, the national Presidential Town Hall Debate was held at Belmont University in Nashville. AARP Tennessee hosted a DWF debate watch party in Centennial Park, attracting more than 700 viewers for the evening event. Throughout the year, AARP hosted DWF forums on health care and financial security, as well as coffee talks with state lawmakers on long-term care.

AARP Foundation: Serving Tennessee

The AARP Foundation provides services that improve the lives of Tennesseans of all generations.

• AARP Tax-Aide is the nation's largest free, volunteer-run tax preparation and assistance service available to low and moderate-income taxpayers. With 85 locations throughout Tennessee, AARP-trained and IRS-certified volunteers helped 57,613 Tennesseans, including those eligible to file for their economic stimulus checks, and filed 2,765 EITC returns, putting $2,854,220 in the pockets of those who need it most.
• The AARP Foundation Consumer Fraud Prevention project engages peer volunteers in alerting older consumers to telemarketing and other types of fraud that endanger their financial security.  Volunteers reach out to known and potential fraud victims to offer tips and information about telemarketing scams and other forms of fraud.  Through this program, AARP helped 29,442 fraud victims or potential fraud victims in Tennessee in the first three quarters of 2008.

These and additional Foundation programs served more than 95,379 Tennesseans in 2008.

AARP Contact Information

Tennessee: Rebecca Kelly, Tennessee State Director; rbkelly@aarp.org; 615-726-5100
Washington, DC: Denise DeMichele, Legislative Representative; ddemichele@aarp.org; 202-434-3374

_{References
Providing Real Relief: AARP Public Policy Institute Tabulations of the A132007 American Community Survey (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007).
Reforming Health Care: Premiums: The Kaiser Family Foundation. 2008. State Health Facts.
Reforming Health Care:  Uninsured: AARP PPI Report:  "Health Care Reform:  What 50- to 64-Year-Olds Have at Stake"
Helping the Most Vulnerable: SCHIP, Medicaid: The Kaiser Family Foundation. 2008. State Health Facts.
Aging in Place: AARP Public Policy Institute, 2008. A Balancing Act: State Long Term Care Reform.
Strengthening Medicare: The Kaiser Family Foundation. 2008. State Health Facts.
Ensuring Social Security: Social Security Administration. 2007. OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County.
Promoting Retirement Savings: Based on data from the US Census, State and County Business Patterns & Current Populations Survey statistics on Pension Coverage. 2004.
Addressing the Housing Crisis: AARP Public Policy Institute. 2008. A First Look at Older Americans and the Mortgage Crisis.}