[Senate Hearing 117-506]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                        S. Hrg. 117-506
 
                         ISSUES FACING SENIORS:
                    RETIREMENT SECURITY, HEALTHCARE,
                           AND FISCAL HEALTH

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS


                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                           Wildwood, Florida

                               __________

                           NOVEMBER 21, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-24

         Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging
         
         
         
         
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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
        
        
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              U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
49-820 PDF          WASHINGTON : 2022 
       
        
        
        
                       SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING

              ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania, Chairman

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York      TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts      RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  MARCO RUBIO, Florida
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             RICK SCOTT, Florida
                                     MIKE LEE, Utah
                              ----------                              
        Michael Gamel-McCormick, Acting Majority Staff Director
                 Neri Martinez, Minority Staff Director
                 
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Opening Statement of Senator Rick Scott, Committee Member........     1

                           PANEL OF WITNESSES
                                PANEL I

Rebecca Weber, CEO, Association of Mature American Citizens, New 
  York, New York.................................................     4
Robert Moffit, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Health and 
  Welfare Policy, Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C...........     6
Hayden Dublois, Data and Analytics Director, Foundation for 
  Government Accountability, Marco Island, Florida...............     8

                                PANEL II

Ashley Moody, Attorney General of Florida, Tallahassee, Florida..    21
Nicholas Weilhammer, Associate Deputy Attorney General for 
  Enforcement, Tallahassee, Florida..............................    23
Thomas Blomberg, Ph.D., Dean of Criminology Executive Director, 
  Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research, Florida 
  State University, Tallahassee, Florida.........................    24

                                APPENDIX
                      Prepared Witness Statements

Rebecca Weber, CEO, Association of Mature American Citizens, New 
  York, New York.................................................    37
Robert Moffit, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Health and 
  Welfare Policy, Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C...........    64
Hayden Dublois, Data and Analytics Director, Foundation for 
  Government Accountability, Marco Island, Florida...............    72
Ashley Moody, Attorney General of Florida, Tallahassee, Florida..    80
Nicholas Weilhammer, Associate Deputy Attorney General for 
  Enforcement, Tallahassee, Florida..............................    88
Thomas Blomberg, Ph.D., Dean of Criminology Executive Director, 
  Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research, Florida 
  State University, Tallahassee, Florida.........................    90


                         ISSUES FACING SENIORS:

                    RETIREMENT SECURITY, HEALTHCARE,
                    
                           AND FISCAL HEALTH

                              ----------                              


                       MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
                                Special Committee on Aging,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., at 
Rohan Recreation Center, 3560 Buena Vista Blvd., Wildwood, 
Florida, Hon. Rick Scott, Member of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senator Rick Scott

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR 
                  RICK SCOTT, COMMITTEE MEMBER

    Senator Scott. Okay. We are supposed to start on time, and 
that is why we are not starting yet. Before we get started, by 
the way, this is Alex Ojeda. We have nine offices in Florida.
    The way the Senate works is they give you a budget--and 
hopefully you can hear me, but they give you a budget--you guys 
can hear me? Yes, this probably--you can hear me fine, so they 
give you a budget. It is up to--okay--okay, so they give you a 
budget. I can allocate the dollars a certain way.
    We have nine officers in the State. Alex runs our State 
offices. We just won an award for the best State offices in the 
country, which Alex did I mean, so the way they contact us--you 
can email us, but the best way is if you get to know--if you 
get Alex's card.
    Alex, can you just quickly introduce the people around 
here? We have got offices all over the State. The closest 
office we have here, I guess, is Barry, but if you just wanted, 
before we get started, just introduce your team.
    Ms. Ojeda. [Technical problems]--hearing, our staff will be 
outside. If anyone has an issue with a Federal agency, we will 
have staff here to help. Barry Cotton, he is our Central 
Florida District Director. He is here in Orlando. He covers 
this region and does a great job representing our office.
    We will have Benita and Javier outside helping folks after 
the hearing for anything you need, VA, IRS, Social Security, 
anything where we will be able to help. We have Barry who 
handles our Hispanic outreach here in Central Florida as well.
    Then we have all the way from Miami, our District Director, 
Christine Del Portillo here today, and--that I know a lot of 
you guys have met, and we have Claire from our D.C. team. If 
anyone needs help, please reach out to any of us. We will be 
here after the hearing helping folks with any issues.
    Senator Scott. The big thing is, with any Federal issue we 
deal with--we deal a lot with immigration, we deal a lot with 
Medicare, we deal a lot with Social Security, we deal a lot 
with passports, visas. I mean, there is--everything, and so, 
but we can't solve any problems we don't know about.
    It is pretty simple, and probably if we solved the problem 
for you, we probably might have solved it for somebody else, 
and then I am on five committees. We have allocated our staff 
in D.C. based on our Committees. Jared does a variety of 
things. Any issue that has anything to do with Aging, Jared is 
involved in.
    If you have time, get to know Jared, but the big thing is, 
I have a wonderful group of people I get to work with, and our 
job is to solve your problems. It is really as simple as that. 
This is representative government. My job is to solve your 
problem. All right, so it is 9.30 a.m., so we can start.
    Okay. It is the first time I have ever done that. I have 
been up there four years, and it is not easy to get a field 
hearing approved. It is the first one I have gotten done, so 
thanks, everybody, for being here. I hope, everybody--we are 
here to solve problems and we are here to talk about solutions.
    That is why we are here. I want to thank everybody for 
being here today, and I want to welcome you to this field 
hearing of the United States Aging Committee in Wildwood, 
Florida, home of The Villages. It is always a beautiful day in 
The Villages. It is not every day we get to hold these Senate 
Committee hearings outside the Capitol in Washington, DC.
    As Floridian--you know, as Governor, I got to travel all 
the time around the State, so I was here quite a bit. I hit a 
couple of cities a day, but in this job you have to be there 
39, 40 weeks a year, and you have to be there to vote and hold 
hearings, so you don't get to travel as much, but as a 
Floridian, I have long thought that we need to have a hearing 
down in the State. We can see and hear about the issues facing 
Florida seniors.
    We have got a significant senior population and we have got 
a lot of issues that we ought to be trying everything we can do 
to address them, so it is a real privilege not only to be in 
the Sunshine State, but to be here in The Villages, which is 
just a wonderful community.
    I would like to thank the Committee for allowing us to do 
this, host us here and here, and everybody who made this 
happen. 4.5 million people live in our State over the age of 
65--4.5 million. They come from all over the country. I went 
through--I was asking you all where you are from.
    I am originally from Illinois and Missouri, but I have 
lived in eight States, and so some of the States you all talked 
about, I had the opportunity to live there, but this is a great 
country and we have got people from all over the country 
wanting to move to our State. They come from all over the 
country searching for warmer weather, lower taxes, and a lot of 
wonderful people.
    The Villages is a prime example of a neighborhood that has 
opened its doors to America's seniors. You have to really 
admire what the Morse family has done with The Villages. Sadly, 
over the past few years, we have seen unbelievable amount of 
inflation that is hurting our seniors.
    It is a tax on those with fixed incomes, especially many of 
the seniors who call home. I know I have friends that have gone 
back to work. I have people going to food banks that have never 
gone to a food bank. You hear--the stories you are hearing, 
they are really devastating for our seniors.
    Those who rely on Medicare and Social Security already have 
to be careful about how they spend their money, because if they 
are relying on those programs, it is not unlimited dollars. If 
you add 8.5 or nine percent inflation for a sustained period 
time, that has a pretty big impact on, you know, the difficulty 
of seniors to survive.
    Many seniors, as I have said, they have come out of 
retirement, going to food banks, and their families are having 
problems too. Unfortunately, right now, the President hasn't--
there is no solutions coming out of the White House. There is 
no action taken out of the White House to curb inflation. They 
continue to propose--I mean, I have been up there, and it is 
unbelievable.
    It is like every week there is another new massive spending 
program, and you know, there is--is not money we saved. It is 
borrowed money. It just doesn't make any sense. All this is 
doing is causing more and more inflation. I am glad that the 
Social Security benefits, the payments are going to increase.
    Unfortunately, they are increasing because of this 
unbelievable inflation. I mean, it would be nice if they 
increased but without having all the inflation. There is the 
highest inflation in 40 years. Our seniors are facing a long 
term issue about--and the other issue we have is the 
sustainability of Medicare and Social Security.
    Social Security is projected to run out of funds in 13 
years, and that is without updating it based on the last COLA 
increase. Medicare Part A will run out of money in about six 
years, and as--if anybody that is in the health care business 
have seen their unbelievable cost increases.
    Medicare costs continue to skyrocket. It is becoming a 
bigger and bigger part of our Federal budget, and by the way, 
we are not living within our means. We are not even close to 
living within our means. $31 trillion worth of debt, and the 
deficits are $1 to $2 trillion a year. I mean, so we got to 
figure out--we have got to figure this out.
    We have got to preserve Medicare. We have got to preserve 
Social Security. We have got to live within our means. All of 
us, the rest of us have to do it. In June, the trustees of 
Social Security, Medicare released the 22 reports on the status 
of the programs.
    Their estimates show that Social Security Trust Fund will 
deplete its resources reserves by 2034, and Social Security 
programs will become insolvent in 2035. I hope to be alive at 
that time. I think we all hope to be alive then, and that is 
going to be a tough time for a lot of people.
    Once it is insolvent, the Social Security beneficiaries, 
the payments will be automatically cut by 20 percent. Medicare 
is even a shorter timeline. Part A will be insolvent in 2028. 
Just six years from now. We have got to figure this out. We 
have got to preserve these programs. We have got to preserve 
their benefits.
    We have got to come up with ideas to do that. I am never 
going to allow cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits. I 
know too many people that want to do that. Congress regularly 
reviews these programs, but, you know, we don't even vote on 
Social Security, Medicare.
    We don't even vote on it anymore. How are you going to fix 
it if you don't even review it? We have got to preserve these 
programs and there is no plan to do it. I think this seems like 
the President has created a war on seniors because that is what 
this is going to do, so that is why we are here today.
    Let's start with our witnesses first. Rebecca are you--we 
got Rebecca Webber. Serves as the CEO of the Association of 
Mature American Citizens. She is a strong advocate for 
America's seniors and highlights issues that affect older 
Americans regularly through AMAC Advantage, the Association's 
magazine.
    Thank you for being here. Our second witness is no stranger 
to provide an expert testimony before Congress. Robert Moffit 
is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Health and 
Welfare Policy at the Heritage Foundation. We do a lot of work 
with the Heritage Foundation.
    They put out a lot of reports, and they are a very active 
participant in policy decisions in Congress. His research 
specializes in health care and entitlement programs, especially 
Medicare. In a time when Medicare is headed toward insolvency, 
Mr. Moffit takes an analytical approach on the effect that it 
has on our seniors, and we thank Robert for being here. Our 
final witness on the panel is Hayden DuBlois. Hayden serves as 
the Data and Analytics Director at the Foundation for 
Government Accountability, and that is here in Florida.
    Not that too far from where I live in Naples. In his work, 
he highlights best ways to prevent Government overreach and the 
effect it has on all Americans, so we want to thank each of you 
for being here, so, Rebecca, do you want to start?

         STATEMENT OF REBECCA WEBER, CEO, ASSOCIATION 
        OF MATURE AMERICAN CITIZENS, NEW YORK, NEW YORK

    Ms. Weber. Certainly. Thank you so much, and thank you, 
Senator Scott, for inviting the Association of Mature American 
Citizens, better known as AMAC, to speak on these critical 
issues that are facing seniors today, but first, I would like 
to share a larger message from AMAC's 2.3 million members who 
thank you and applaud you for your commitment to making real 
change in Washington.
    Now, AMAC is an organization dedicated to helping all 
Americans, especially those over age 50, with two million 
members nationwide, 180,000 AMAC members in the Sunshine State, 
because of AMAC's steadfast commitment to American values, AMAC 
has been at the forefront of delivering solutions to fix the 
Social Security crisis.
    Over the last two years, seniors have been hit the hardest 
with increased inflation, decreased buying power, increased 
Medicare premiums, and the looming threat of benefit cuts to 
their Social Security if nothing is done. It is shameful to 
hear the President of the United States claim that the economy 
is strong as hell when seniors know that it is nothing but 
that. The truth is Social Security is not sustainable in its 
current form.
    Seniors live on fixed incomes, and they rely on their 
Social Security check and other Federal health care programs 
such as Medicare and Medicaid. Now, last year, the number of 
seniors living in poverty increased by nearly one million, and 
more than ten percent of seniors are now living below the 
poverty line.
    The increased costs due to inflation affect the food 
security for our seniors, and I was surprised to learn that 
nearly half of seniors have reported visiting a food bank or 
applying for food stamps to afford to eat. For seniors, these 
increasing costs are only one half of the equation.
    The other side is savings, and it is important to note that 
the number of recipients who pay income tax on their Social 
Security benefit is also rising as wages rise with inflation. 
For seniors without decent retirement income, Social Security 
benefits become even more critical. Inaction by elected 
officials are putting these benefits at risk because they are 
doing nothing to fix the impending insolvency of the Social 
Security Trust Fund, which is why we sincerely thank you, sir.
    The Social Security Board of Trustees projects that the 
program's trust fund will be fully depleted by 2035. The 
Congressional Budget Office puts that date as soon as 2032. 
These projections were made before the 2023 cost of living 
increase, which was announced at 8.7 percent. I am sorry, the 
cost of living adjustment.
    This abnormally high cost of living adjustment came on the 
heels of the Biden caused 40 year high inflation and will make 
it likely that these insolvency projections would be moved 
forward at least a year.
    Now reaching the point of total depletion would mean an 
across the board cut of 20 to 25 percent for all seniors who 
draw Social Security benefits. Let me be clear, this massive 
cut in benefits is imminent if we kick the can down the road.
    There is no policy in law today that keeps the benefits at 
their expected levels, and any belief that the program can 
continue without systematic changes to protect those who need 
it is a myth.
    Democrat politicians have decried reform provisions to 
avoid this catastrophic outcome as slashing popular programs, 
which is a lie clearly intended to deceive the public from the 
truth of the situation. We need to do the right thing. AMAC has 
a Social Security guarantee proposal. It ensures the program's 
long term solvency, while also returning the program to its 
original intent, to keep seniors out of poverty.
    AMAC's Social Security guarantee is based on three core 
objectives, to increase benefits for those with lower incomes 
by changing how the cost of living adjustment works, to achieve 
Social Security Trust Fund solvency with relatively minor 
formula adjustments that would extend the life of the Social 
Security Trust Fund, along with the inclusion of a Social 
Security supplemental early retirement account.
    Now, that is designed to help workers accumulate funds for 
their retirement years, which will provide a means for all 
earners to have more income available at retirement. We look 
forward to working with Congress to continue to push these 
reforms, but Social Security is only one of the Federal safety 
nets that require reform.
    Rising health care costs and the refusal of Democrats to 
support free market reforms are impacting the long term 
sustainability of Medicare. Just last year, the Biden 
Administration announced the largest increase in Medicare Part 
B premiums in program history. Premiums went up 14.5 percent 
compared to last year.
    Now, Democrats are also double down on refusing to use the 
free market to solve rising health care costs by implementing 
prescription drug price fixing through the Inflation Reduction 
Act. This price fixing results from provisions of that Act that 
enable the Secretary of Health and Human Services to dictate 
the price for a limited number of drugs for Medicare Part B and 
Part D.
    This Government price setting will reduce capital available 
to fuel the U.S. engine that drives research and development. 
That means fewer innovative drugs coming to the market, and 
that threatens Americans' life expectancy.
    The price setting policies passed by Democrats will erode 
Medicare Part D, a successful market based public, private 
partnership that is delivered quantifiable successes year over 
year. No other Administration in the last 50 years has done as 
much damage to seniors and their longevity, their prosperity, 
and their legacy as the Biden Administration.
    Senator Scott, thank you very much for hosting this 
hearing. On behalf of AMAC members, we thank you for your 
leadership.
    Senator Scott. By the way, they just had--there was just an 
article in The Wall Street Journal about some of the drug 
companies that have cut back already on some of their new 
drugs.
    Mr. Moffitt.

          STATEMENT OF ROBERT MOFFIT, SENIOR RESEARCH

         FELLOW, CENTER FOR HEALTH AND WELFARE POLICY,

             HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

    Mr. Moffit. Thank you very much. Senator, I want to thank 
you for the opportunity to testify before your Committee. I 
hasten to add that the views that I expressed here today are 
entirely my own and do not necessarily represent the views of 
the Heritage Foundation. I want to focus my testimony on 
Medicare.
    Medicare, as we know it, is a fleeting thing. The program 
has grown and changed over many years, but the biggest change 
has been the rapid growth of enrollment and private health 
plans under the Medicare Advantage program. Just to give you an 
idea. In 1990, only two million seniors were enrolled in 
Medicare Advantage.
    Today, it is 30 million. Frankly, we are looking at 32 
million next year, which is about 48 percent of all 
enrollments. I hasten to add that in this context, that in 
Medicare Advantage, about 54 percent of all Florida Medicare 
enrollees are enrolled in Medicare Advantage.
    As Rebecca has just pointed out, Medicare is facing a very 
serious problem. We are faced with insolvency in the Medicare 
Trust Fund as early as 2028, perhaps earlier, depending upon 
the impact of this recession.
    At that point, Medicare benefits will be cut at least 10 
percent. The Medicare trustees----
    Senator Scott. Like that, right? They admit, that is the 
way it works.
    Mr. Moffit. Right away. In other words, there is, you know, 
10 percent the first year. The effect of it is that this will 
deepen over time if Congress does nothing.
    The Medicare trustees have warned Congress repeatedly that 
if, in fact, this is allowed to happen, it has never happened 
before, but if it is allowed to happen, that Medicare 
beneficiaries will rapidly see a reduction in their access to 
medical care. Medicare Part A is not the only problem.
    Medicare Part B, as Rebecca has just mentioned, the cost, 
the premiums are going up dramatically, not only for seniors, 
but also for taxpayers. Just let me give you just one metric. 
In 2017, Medicare premiums consumed 17 percent of all Federal 
business and income taxes. By 2030, it will be 22 percent.
    By 2040, it will be 27 percent just for Medicare premiums, 
so we are dealing with a very serious financial problem. Over 
the next 75 years, Medicare is going to generate huge unfunded 
obligations, amounting to $52.6 trillion. That is $160,000 for 
every person in the United States. That dwarfs the national 
debt of the United States.
    There is no way we are going to spend less on Medicare, no 
question about it, but we can improve Medicare. We can slow the 
growth of spending if we employ market forces, which will 
secure a better value for Medicare dollars, so the future of 
Medicare--for the future of Medicare, job one for Members of 
Congress is to make sure that they don't make the current 
situation worse.
    As Rebecca has just mentioned, the Inflation Reduction Act 
does just that. The CBO estimates that after we put this price 
control system into place, they expect that that will save for 
the taxpayer $287 billion over 10 years. The right policy would 
be to earmark every dime of those savings through the Medicare 
Trust Fund.
    Congress has refused to do that, and Senator, on a personal 
note, I want to thank you for what you did with the Postal 
Reform Act. Many of you may not be familiar with this, but we 
just had a major debate on the Postal Service Reform Act to 
bail out the Postal Service, which is in deep financial 
trouble.
    One of the key issues was the unfunded liabilities of the 
retiree program in the Postal Service, $75 billion worth of 
unfunded retiree obligations. Well, what Congress did was 
simply to shift that $75 billion over to the Medicare program.
    Senator Scott offered a very simple amendment, which was in 
any transition of postal retirees to full Medicare coverage, 
the Postal Service should be required to reimburse the Medicare 
program for any additional costs.
    The Senate Democrats opposed the amendment. The amendment 
wasn't even given a vote, and the Senate then passed the House 
bill by a lopsided 79 to 19 vote. It was not the finest hour of 
the U.S. Senate.
    I will say this, what we have to look forward to is to 
build on the success of the Medicare Advantage program. There 
is a lot of reasons to do so, but the most important is that of 
all the features, one of the main reasons why seniors are 
enrolling in private health plans is because not just simply 
because of the convenience or the cost, but also because of the 
quality.
    There was a team of researchers who recently wrote in 
Health Affairs a comprehensive review of all the literature on 
quality performance in Medicare. I will just summarize what 
they said. ``Evidence from 48 studies showed that in most or 
all comparisons, Medicare Advantage outperformed traditional 
Medicare in most studies comparing quality of care metrics.''
    Congress needs to make improvements in traditional 
Medicare. The Congress can also make improvements in the 
Medicare Advantage program. I have outlined about six different 
proposals, but I will just mention a couple of them before I 
quit here. One is, under current law, Medicare beneficiaries 
cannot continue to make tax free contributions to their health 
savings accounts. That is a stupid provision.
    Another stupid provision is that if you are enrolled in a 
medical savings account in the Medicare Advantage program, that 
medical savings account cannot offer a prescription drug 
benefit. That is a stupid provision. Congress should also 
improve the reform--should improve the payment of the Medicare 
Advantage program plans.
    Right now, we tie the payment to this traditional Medicare 
system, which is basically a very complex system of price 
controls. Congress overpays and underpays in every region of 
the country. The literature on this is thick.
    All I will say to you is that one basic idea that would 
make a lot of sense is to replace this current system of 
planned payments with a simpler system of market based bidding 
among competing plans to offer the traditional Medicare Part A 
and Part B benefits.
    That would give us an actual market price of coverage, and 
it would drive down cost in the Medicare program through more 
intense competition among plans and providers.
    Senator Scott. If that happened, would the plan have an 
incentive for you to be healthy?
    Mr. Moffit. That is correct.
    Senator Scott. Shocking.
    Mr. Moffit. What is even more shocking----
    Senator Scott. Because you have the right incentives.
    Mr. Moffit. What is even more shocking is that every 
Federal employee and retiree is in a system where the plan 
payment system is precisely that, and that has been in 
existence since 1960, when John F. Kennedy was the first 
President of the United States to enroll in the Federal 
employee health benefits program. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Scott. Thanks, Mr. Moffit. Next, we have Mr. 
DuBlois.

             STATEMENT OF HAYDEN DUBLOIS, DATA AND

         ANALYTICS DIRECTOR, FOUNDATION FOR GOVERNMENT

             ACCOUNTABILITY, MARCO ISLAND, FLORIDA

    Mr. DuBlois. Thank you, Senator. Good morning. Thank you, 
Senator Scott, for being here, for having us here, and for all 
you do for Floridians, especially on this very important issue. 
I appreciate the opportunity to testify here today on behalf of 
the Foundation for Government Accountability on this very, very 
important issue.
    Seniors are grappling with the same crisis millions of 
Americans are facing, sky high inflation brought on by this 
Administration's policies. The average American over the age of 
65 is spending more than 13 percent more for the very same 
goods and services compared to what they were spending in 
January 2021. For certain expenses, like transportation, it is 
roughly 28 percent more, or an extra $280 per month.
    As Senator Scott alluded to, that is a hidden tax on 
seniors across this country, and despite the Biden 
Administration's bragging, the automatic cost of living 
adjustments for Social Security are by no means a fix to this 
inflation.
    The Senior Citizens League has forecasted that these 
proposed COLA increases in 2023 may not offset ongoing 
inflationary costs for seniors, resulting in a further erosion 
of their purchasing power. I want to touch on three key causes 
of this inflation, America's labor shortage, runaway Government 
spending, and our energy crisis.
    First, America's labor shortage is driving up the cost of 
everyday goods and services for seniors. The labor force 
participation rate was already declining for roughly two 
decades prior to the pandemic but has persistently failed to 
recover to even pre-pandemic levels.
    Today, there are still more than three million missing 
workers from the American economy, with nearly twice as many 
open jobs as there are people looking for them. This begs the 
question, where are these missing workers? Well, the answer is 
millions of them are on welfare.
    Pandemic era welfare benefits have simply made it more 
lucrative to stay home and return to work for many Americans. 
Consider the following. First, the work requirement for able 
bodied adults without dependents aged 18 to 49 on food stamps 
is suspended nationwide, all while food stamp benefit amounts 
have been repeatedly hiked over the last two and a half years.
    Second, both States and the Biden Administration have taken 
dramatic steps to expand welfare for able bodied adults via 
Medicaid, and finally, the Biden Administration is seeking to 
further erode eligibility checks and program integrity in 
welfare programs that are already riddled with improper 
payments and fraud, so long as the public health emergency 
continues and these elevated welfare benefits persist, so will 
America's labor shortage. This has the further undesired effect 
of crowding out resources for seniors.
    For example, consider that most of the growth in Medicaid 
since the beginning of the pandemic has been among able bodied 
adults, while Medicaid waiting lists for truly needy Americans, 
such as those who are elderly, has remained in the hundreds of 
thousands nationwide.
    In addition to the labor shortage, runaway Government 
spending like the more than $5 trillion in pandemic related 
stimulus, has undoubtedly fueled the inflation crisis. Consider 
that if we just rolled back Federal spending to just pre-
pandemic levels, we could eliminate the Federal budget deficit, 
and so-called remedies to inflation----
    Senator Scott. Could you just say that again? Do you guys 
realize the numbers. We have had an unbelievable increase in 
revenues, but expenses have just skyrocketed.
    Mr. DuBlois. Yes. If we just rolled it back, spending, to 
pre-pandemic levels, the Federal budget deficit would be 
effectively eliminated, if you can imagine that.
    Senator Scott. Think about that.
    Mr. DuBlois. Yes.
    Senator Scott. Just in three years.
    Mr. DuBlois. Yes, it is truly unbelievable and a sign of 
how much we are spending, and so-called remedies to this, like 
the poorly named Inflation Reduction Act, have only made the 
crisis worse, as my colleagues have already alluded to.
    According to the Wharton School of Business, the Inflation 
Reduction Act will actually increase the rate of inflation as 
hundreds of billions of dollars are dedicated to green energy 
subsidies and expansions of Obamacare.
    Finally, the current Administration's undermining of 
American energy has caused utility and gas prices for seniors 
to skyrocket. Rather than energy independence, the policy of 
the current Administration has been an energy capitulation to 
the left.
    We have seen bans and restrictions on domestic drilling, 
new ESG guidance that threatens access to capital for energy 
companies, the canceling of the Keystone XL pipeline, and much 
more. As monthly drilling permits have plummeted, gas and 
utility prices have unsurprisingly gone through the roof.
    Now there are three key steps Federal policymakers can take 
to reverse the severe effects inflation is having on the 
financial security of seniors. First, end the Federal public 
health emergency, or untie it for major expansions of welfare 
programs so that these pandemic era welfare expansions will 
finally recede.
    While we are at it, we should implement universal work 
requirements for able bodied working age adults in these 
programs, like an S. 4448, Senator Scott's, Let's Get to Work 
Act, so that we can encourage Americans to reenter the 
workforce and break free from the clutches of Government 
dependency.
    Second, reaffirm support for the American energy sector by 
reversing the Biden Administration's undermining of fossil 
fuels. Last but not least, hold the executive branch 
accountable for Federal spending generated by rulemaking and 
guidance.
    Congress can again take a page out of Florida's book, 
where, thanks to a law implemented by then-Governor Scott, 
Florida legislators have to approve costly regulations proposed 
by the executive branch.
    We can and should replicate Florida's success on the 
national stage by passing the REINS Act to rein in the 
Executive rulemaking. Together, these three steps will preserve 
the financial security of seniors by ending the erosion of 
their savings and purchasing power that has so severely 
affected them as a result of this Administration's failed 
policies.
    Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
    Senator Scott. Thanks. Yes, what we propose is if you want 
to be on the Federal programs and you are of working age, able 
bodied adults, so you shouldn't be on a program if you can 
work, so that is pretty basic, right, so but unfortunately the 
Democrats blocked that. Ms. Weber, do you want to talk about 
some of the--some of your members, I mean I don't know if you 
have any stories from Florida, but the impact of this inflation 
has had on their livelihood, and if you--I don't know if you 
have any stories.
    Ms. Weber. They sure do. Well, they certainly do see it as 
a covenant of promise, and they feel very disheartened. You 
know, our seniors are saying that the inflation is not keeping 
up with this increase.
    We saw what happened with Medicare Part D premiums 
increasing as well. It is estimated, Senator, that 50 million 
folks have no retirement plan. The average person collects 
about $16,000 per year on Social Security. This is why we think 
it is so urgent that we provide a means for people to save more 
for retirement. That is so urgent.
    AMAC members do engage with us regularly. One of the 
important key, I think, key points of retirement is 
understanding your budget and understanding your income, and so 
we provide a Social Security advisory service to all Americans. 
That is so important because it is a complicated issue.
    Senator Scott. Right. By the way, as you--when you guys are 
answering the question, if you tell people because all of you 
put out some information for the public, how--do you just tell 
people to--why don't you each tell people where you can get 
some of the things you put out because you all put out 
different reports.
    Ms. Weber. Thank you so much. Yes, the AMAC Foundation, a 
501(c)(3) works to provide people with information on Social 
Security. We have got Social Security advisers that are 
standing by and ready to field questions, of course, at no 
charge, and this is just a service that we think is necessary.
    There is nobody who does it better, but when people do call 
Social Security directly, they are not getting all of the 
answers that they are getting. Sometimes people don't have the 
answers there. That is an important area that we are very proud 
to help folks across the entire nation.
    Mr. Moffit. Yes, as far as getting information from the 
Heritage Foundation, it is actually quite easy. Just go to 
heritage.org, and you know, you will be able to access the 
Heritage Foundation website, and on the website you have a wide 
range of issues. We cover everything from foreign and defense 
policy, to health, education, welfare, housing, urban policy, 
Social Security, and Medicare. Most of the--if you go to the 
website, you click on health care policy, you can see all of 
the work that Heritage has done on the Medicare program.
    Actually, Medicare has been a Heritage priority actually 
since the mid-1990's when we helped to create the foundation 
for the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of 
Medicare for the reform of the system.
    Unfortunately, the Clinton administration killed the 
proposal. It was a bipartisan proposal. We are going to revisit 
the Medicare issue again simply because there is no choice. It 
is not a question of whether we want to or not.
    Mr. DuBlois. Yes. The Foundation for Government 
Accountability, FGA, we are out of Naples, Florida, not 
terribly far from here, and you can learn more and visit our 
research at thefga.org. We also work on welfare, workforce, 
health care, inflation, energy, election integrity issues and 
have a whole array of research papers on our website where you 
can learn about some of our solutions, some of our work.
    We are on the ground in 32 States, including Florida, and 
have a shop in Washington D.C. as well, so, plenty to learn at 
thefga.org.
    Senator Scott. Hey, and do you want to talk about a little 
bit more about how this restriction of the workforce is 
actually causing inflation, and it is--how it is hurting 
seniors.
    Mr. DuBlois. Yes, absolutely, Senator. You know, we have 
today 10.7 million open jobs in this country, up from 7.2 
million before the pandemic, so that is an extra 3.5 million 
jobs that are posted at businesses that they are unable to 
fill. Near record high, and there are nearly twice as many open 
jobs as there are unemployed persons searching for work.
    In fact, as I mentioned in my testimony, three million 
Americans are just missing from the labor force altogether. 
They have dropped out and they haven't come back yet, and it 
has failed to recover to even pre-pandemic levels.
    If you were to plot on a chart the labor force 
participation rate and the number of Americans receiving 
welfare benefits who are able bodied of working age, it would 
look like an x, as the number of individuals on welfare goes 
up, the labor force participation goes down, and obviously that 
has dramatic consequences for seniors because when individuals 
aren't working, they are not paying into Social Security and 
Medicare. They are also causing businesses to have to pay 
higher for labor prices, which gets passed along to consumers 
in the form of higher prices.
    The labor shortage is having dramatic effects on the 
inflation that seniors here in Florida and across the Nation 
are facing every day, and not to mention, seniors, many of whom 
are here today, who already put in their time, they paid into 
the system, and now you have got able bodied working age 
adults, many of whom do not have dependents at all, who are out 
of the workforce and able to remain on these elevated pandemic 
era benefits, and just from the element of fairness, it is just 
not a matter of--it is just not a fair situation that these 
individuals are not paying into the very systems that seniors 
are so reliant on when seniors have already paid their time and 
worked their whole life.
    Senator Scott. Have you guys put out any studies--haven't 
you put out studies that show that what these extra benefits 
have done, you have more, you know, more and more people, one, 
not working, and actually, if you are at the bottom level and 
you get on these programs, you are making as much money as 
people that are working full time.
    Mr. DuBlois. You are actually making more, believe it or 
not, in a number of these programs. When you stack them all 
up----
    Senator Scott. How is that fair?
    Mr. DuBlois. It is certainly not. It is certainly not. Then 
when you consider not only are the benefit levels going up, but 
the work requirements are either gone or suspended, it takes 
any incentive that was there to return to work for these folks 
and completely obliterates it, so you have got individuals who 
could be on many of these programs simultaneously, food stamps, 
Medicaid, public housing, and if they are able bodied adults 
without dependents, right now, thanks to the public health 
emergency and the Biden Administration going after work 
requirements, they don't have to lift a finger and it is just 
not fair.
    Senator Scott. No. Bob, can you talk about two things. One, 
why, like did Medicare Advantage, why creating the right 
incentives reduces costs and improves outcomes.
    Mr. Moffit. Well, if you have--the value of Medicare 
Advantage as a model and why we should build on Medicare 
Advantage going forward is that the key decisions are made by 
consumers picking and choosing the kind of plan that they want. 
They may pick a PPO, they may take an HMO----
    Senator Scott. We all have different interests, right.
    Mr. Moffit. Different interests, different standards, and 
so on. The key element is that the Federal Government operates 
Medicare Advantage, unlike traditional Medicare, on a defined 
contribution basis, so you pick and choose the plan you want.
    The Government makes a contribution to the plan that you 
have chosen, but that plan can only survive in the marketplace 
if it can compete, which means that it promises to deliver the 
services that you want.
    Now, Medicare Advantage is not a perfect system. As I said, 
it is not a perfect system, but what we have seen is that from 
the standpoint of delivering quality, and convenience, and 
richer benefits packages at a competitive price, Medicare 
Advantage actually surpassed all of the estimates that have 
been made previously about the future of Medicare, so it seems 
to me, I mean, you know, if you are talking about at the end of 
the day, what do you want? You don't want to just spend money. 
You want to get good quality for the dollars that you spend.
    The idea here is to get better value for our Medicare 
dollars. That would not only apply to seniors, but it also 
applies to the Federal taxpayers who are subsidizing the 
Medicare program. We have seen this in other areas.
    I mentioned earlier why I think we ought to take the 
Medicare payment system for private plans and improve it on the 
basis of the Federal employee system. I am actually a veteran 
of that system. I was in the Federal employee system for 11 
years when I worked for President Reagan.
    I was the Chief congressional Relations Director at the 
United States Office of Personnel Management. I had a direct 
responsibility for this. I will tell you, one of the great 
things about that program--I have never seen anything like it 
before.
    One of the great things about that program is I know, and I 
can testify under oath, if you want to administer the oath, but 
I can testify under oath that the insurers would literally 
sweat blood making sure that they were able to offer a benefits 
package that was competitive at the right premium level, 
because if they did not, they would lose their shirt, and so 
that is the value of a competitive system. There is no question 
about it. Adam Smith has proven this since 1776, when Adam 
Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, we know that competition 
drives innovation, it drives higher productivity, and it lowers 
costs, and that is about as true as the law of gravity, and it 
is important--it would be important for Members of Congress to 
understand that fundamental truth and apply it to public 
policy.
    Senator Scott. Can you also explain, so let's say we don't 
do anything, all right. If we don't do anything, we hit 2028 
and Medicare Part A goes insolvent. What actually happens? What 
would be the impact on a senior?
    Mr. Moffit. What happens automatically is that in--that you 
will see a 10--according to the Medicare trustees, not any 
projections made by the Heritage Foundation, but in 2028, the 
Medicare trustees say that there will be a 10 percent reduction 
in benefit payments under Medicare Part A, and that is 
hospitalization, and the Medicare trustees argue, assuming 
Congress doesn't do anything, that therefore, year by year, the 
benefit payment cuts get deeper and deeper and deeper, so it is 
a situation which is catastrophic from the standpoint of access 
to medical care at American hospitals. Again, this is not the 
Heritage Foundation thing. The Medicare trustees themselves 
have said that beneficiary access to care will be rapidly 
curtailed if Congress refuses to act by 2028.
    Senator Scott. How many--the providers, let's take, you 
know, the hospital providers, how many of them are going to be 
able to stay in business if they don't get paid?
    Mr. Moffit. Well, the problem is that already you are 
facing trouble in hospitals because Medicare payments for 
hospital services are significantly below private commercial 
rates.
    Already under Medicare rates, I mean, it is something you 
unfortunately, Senator, I hate to break it, but you know this 
already, but the fact of the matter is, you know, it is not a 
question of what you want to do.
    Hospitals and physicians under the current Medicare payment 
system are already facing significant reductions over time. 
Physicians are going to start to see some serious reductions 
after 2025.
    According to the Medicare trustees, all part A providers, 
hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes, even hospital 
hospice, and even hospice organizations will start to see very 
significant payment reductions under the existing payment 
system of Medicare, so you are going to have to----
    Senator Scott. It is going to get both.
    Mr. Moffit. You are going to have to do something.
    Senator Scott. If you are in the provider side, your 
payment comes down----
    Mr. Moffit. Right.
    Senator Scott. If we don't get inflation under control, 
your costs go up.
    Mr. Moffit. Correct.
    Senator Scott. I mean, it is a double whammy.
    Mr. Moffit. Now, it is the perfect storm, and it is made 
worse by a lot of other problems, and this is not a bad thing, 
but the fact of the matter is, is that we are starting--we have 
a very, very large and growing, rapidly growing senior 
population.
    Today, roughly, you know, 63, 64 million people are 
enrolled in the Medicare program. That is going to jump up 
close to 80 million and, you know, in just a few years, 2030, 
2032, so we are going to look at--you are seeing a larger 
demand for medical services where you are having a constricted 
supply.
    That is not a pretty picture. There is no way to make that 
look nice, and so Congress has got to get deadly serious about 
this. I know that people--I know, I know for a fact that 
members of the House and Senate, I know because I talk to 
members in the House and Senate all the time, they don't like 
to discuss it.
    Senator Scott. No, no, we don't vote on it.
    Mr. Moffit. Oh, yes, that is true.
    Senator Scott. That is right. It is not--do you realize 
when we do the budget, we don't vote on 70 percent of the 
Federal spending.
    Mr. Moffit. Yes, well, that is another major issue.
    Senator Scott. You can't make this stuff up.
    Mr. Moffit. Pardon?
    Ms. Weber. You can't.
    Senator Scott. Who would do that? I am a business guy. 
Would you say, oh, I am not going to worry about the budget, we 
are just going to do what we did last year?
    Mr. Moffit. Technical problems]--automatic spending 
increases without any kind of review, and the problem is, is 
that when you have automatic spending, you are----
    Senator Scott. There is no accountability.
    Mr. Moffit. The accountability goes away, and the problem 
is not the Medicare bureaucracy. The problem, unfortunately, 
Senator, the problem is your colleagues. Members of Congress, 
both Republicans and Democrats, have got to get very serious 
about. Now they have in the past. You know, and it not--this 
potentially is a bipartisan issue.
    Senator Scott. It should be.
    Mr. Moffit. Back in 2012, Senator Ron Wyden, who, you know, 
your colleague, Senator Ron Wyden, the Democrat--I know Senator 
Wyden personally. I have been on panels with him, and he is a 
brilliant Senator, actually.
    I thought he was on our side. He is not, but the truth of 
the matter is that he addressed this issue back in 2012. I have 
a quote from him. This is from HuffPost. I will quote it 
because I think there is potential here. He said, ``unless 
Congress enact meaningful Medicare reform in the near future, 
seniors will be faced with inevitable cost shifting and 
eventual benefit cuts until Medicare doesn't look anything like 
the program does today.''
    Again, it is not a question--ultimately, it is not a 
question of what Congress wants to do. It is a question of what 
they must do and the consequences if they do not do it are 
terrible for seniors and equally terrible for taxpayers.
    As I said, the unfunded obligation for the Medicare 
program, that is the promised benefits that are not financed 
either by premiums or dedicated revenues, continues to increase 
and will reach $52.6 trillion over the next 75 years. Our 
national debt is now $31 trillion and growing.
    This is another obligation. I don't think most Americans 
are even vaguely aware of the size of this obligation. 
Generation Z is just clueless about what this means for them, 
but it is going to be pretty serious.
    Senator Scott. Rebecca, do you want to talk about what you 
are hearing from your members with regard to the insolvency of 
Social Security and how they are--you know, how that impacts 
them?
    Ms. Weber. Certainly. Yes. You asked me earlier about any 
personal stories from AMAC membership. I do want to share a 
quick story. AMAC members are fed up that the Government is 
spending money that we don't have on things that we don't need, 
and seniors are being left, you know, holding the bill. I also 
want to point out my grandparents, wonderful, wonderful people.
    My grandmother lived a life of volunteerism. She served her 
community. My grandfather fought in World War II and in the 
Korean War. When my grandfather passed away, the only thing my 
grandmother was left was her Social Security, and this lady, 
had it not been for my parents to help supplement her income 
and take care of her, would have been on the streets.
    These are the great people of this country that we are 
forgetting about, and we have got to look to the future. We 
have got to look to the future and say, if this is what we have 
seen happen and we are seeing it occur, what about the young 
people today that hopefully will reach those golden years?
    That is why we are so focused on coming up with solutions, 
but what our members are saying is that something has got to be 
done.
    They are very happy that we are here today and especially 
thankful to you, Senator Scott, for allowing our over two 
million members to have a voice to express the fact that 
something has got to be done to stop--you know, we always get 
accused of pushing grammy off the cliff every time we want to 
look to do something to fix the problem, and that is completely 
untrue. By fixing the problem, we are saving our future 
generations.
    Senator Scott. If you care about your grandmother.
    Ms. Weber. If you care about your grandma.
    Senator Scott. You would--I mean, think about it, who would 
do this to their family, right?
    Ms. Weber. That is right.
    Senator Scott. That is what you are doing. If we don't 
solve this, we are not taking care of the people we care about.
    Ms. Weber. That is right, and that is exactly what our 
members are saying.
    Senator Scott. Now, Hayden, you want to talk about how much 
energy costs impact inflation?
    Mr. DuBlois. Oh, tremendously. I mean, that has been the 
number one cost driver we have seen over the last nearly two 
years for inflation, and a lot of that, unfortunately, is been 
misrepresented.
    I mean, the Biden Administration has gone to Twitter saying 
that gas prices and energy prices are down. Under the new 
ownership of Twitter, they got a fact checked on that, showing 
that gas prices are still up 62 percent since January 2021, and 
energy and utility prices are up by 31 percent over the same 
period. I think 30--that is nearly a third over the last less 
than two years. That is tremendously harmful for seniors and 
for all Americans, and unfortunately, this is a direct cause of 
the undermining of American energy we have seen over the last 
nearly two years. We have seen a significant uptick in onshore 
leasing restrictions for drilling in particularly in Alaska, in 
the ANWAR area, as well as offshore. An increase in offshore 
drilling fees.
    We have seen the Department of Labor put out a ESG rule, 
ESG stands for environmental, social, and Governmental factors, 
and basically trying to get plan fiduciary for retirement plans 
to take into account environmental factors and the latest feel 
good social causes instead of rate of return, which matters a 
lot to retirees and all Americans, and so when you do that, it 
threatens access to capital for these energy companies, so they 
are forced to increase their costs and pass that along to 
consumers. At the same time, the rate of return of those 
retirement plans is also suffering. Not to mention rejoining 
the Paris Climate Accord, social risk scores from the 
comptroller.
    All of this is having a detrimental impact on American 
energy. We were not too long ago a net exporter of energy under 
the previous Administration. We can't say that anymore. We 
certainly can't say that anymore, and in fact, again, to borrow 
what I mentioned earlier, if you were to plot the number of 
drilling permits approved and plot energy prices, one would be 
plummeting, the other would be increasing, and it is a big x on 
a chart, and it certainly has pointed over in the form of 
higher energy prices and gas prices that seniors are facing.
    Senator Scott. Does it impact food prices?
    Mr. DuBlois. Oh, certainly.
    Senator Scott. Does impact construction?
    Mr. DuBlois. Absolutely.
    Senator Scott. It impacts housing prices, food prices, you 
know, cost of transportation. What does it--I mean----
    Mr. DuBlois. Energy drives everything. The food you go to 
the store, it has to be driven there, or it has to be flown 
there. It has to be transported there in some fashion, and so, 
you know, from your home and your utilities, to the 
construction materials for home, to the food and your store, to 
the gas in your car, all of that is formed by energy, 
increasingly less American energy, because of this 
Administration trying to drive that back and rely more on 
foreign energy, so it all ties back to that, and a lot of this 
has been the result of Executive decisions that even Congress, 
which unfortunately has been under the control of the majority 
party for the last two years, even Congress hasn't weighed in 
on that. I mean, we have seen Executive rulemaking that has 
been so detrimentally disastrous for energy.
    The rescinding of the Keystone XL pipeline was an Executive 
decision. The Department of Labor ESG rule I mentioned, 
Executive decision. If we looked at something like the REINS 
Act, which again, just to clarify what that means is right now 
the executive branch can propose a rule of any cost. If it gets 
public comment, they can accept that or ignore it, and it goes 
into effect, period. With the Reins----
    Senator Scott. I mean we don't--I thought we were supposed 
to--I thought we were supposed to be do the laws. The way that, 
you know, three branches of Government, that Congress is 
supposed to be responsible for that. It is not the way it 
works.
    Mr. DuBlois. Yes, when it comes to Executive rulemaking, it 
certainly isn't, and so the REINS Act, which stands for 
Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny, simply 
says, if you are spending $100 million or more, you have to get 
congressional approval. That is it, and we piloted this here in 
Florida under a bill you implemented, and we have seen it pan 
out. I mean, the current outgoing Democrat Agriculture 
Commissioner tried to effectively ban Styrofoam products here, 
and that was dead on arrival in the Legislature because of that 
very law.
    Florida can do it. The nation can and should do it, too, 
and that would have a great impact in reducing Federal 
spending, reducing inflation, and opening up the energy sector 
again. Thanks.
    Senator Scott. All right. We are going to take a break in a 
second, but I wanted to ask Bob one more question. Can you 
explain, let's say, you know what they did with this $280 
billion cut Medicare into the last bill they did in September, 
how that is going to--so the way it works is you reduce the 
amount of money you can give to drug companies, right. Do you 
think they are going to produce more lifesaving drugs or less?
    Mr. Moffit. Well, let me put it this way, Senator. The 
answer is so simple, it doesn't require much of an explanation, 
which is if you are going to pay less for something, you are 
going to be guaranteed less.
    Under the explicit language of the Inflation Reduction Act, 
you are not going to have any immediate, long term--short term 
reduction in drug prices, but under the Act, the Secretary is 
going to publish a list that would be subject to--where drugs 
would be subject to negotiation. Now, to use the term 
negotiation, and you know----
    Senator Scott. It sounds nice.
    Mr. Moffit. It sounds nice. It sounds like a kind of 
private sector business that goes on all the time where a 
couple of guys sit across the table from each other and 
negotiate a price. That is not what happens with the Medicare 
program. The Medicare program doesn't negotiate anything.
    Medicare fixes prices, it does not negotiate prices, but in 
any event, a group of drugs would be subject to price fixing in 
2026 and it goes all the way up. It continues 2015. There will 
be--in 2027, it will be 15 drugs. In 2029, there will be 20.
    The Secretary fixes the price of the drugs. There is one 
thing that is absolutely true that is not subject to dispute, 
and that is there will be a reduction in breakthrough drugs or 
new medications. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated 
that there will be 15 fewer new medications over the next 20 to 
30 years.
    Now, that is the Congressional Budget Office. However, you 
know, they may be right. They may be wrong, but in fact, the 
Congressional Budget Office, in their own words, said, the CBO 
does not predict ``what kind of drugs will be affected or 
analyze the effects of the foregone innovation on public 
health.''
    Which means, we don't know what the actual impact will be 
on the public health of Americans, but also the fact that the 
United States produces 90 percent of all the breakthrough drugs 
in the world. This is going to have a global impact. 
Independent analysts project a much larger negative impact on 
the availability of new therapies, new medications, or new 
breakthrough drugs.
    There was a study done by Thomas Philipson of the 
University of Chicago, and he estimated that on a similar bill, 
that this approach would result in a reduction of $952 billion 
in foregone spending and a reduction in the development of new 
drugs, anywhere between 167 to 320 fewer--324 fewer new drugs 
over a 20 year period.
    The point is, once again, a price control policy--people 
have got to understand, politicians cannot control the demand 
for anything, but they can control supply, and the way they 
control supply is to reduce the supply or the good or service. 
Never mis-underestimate this.
    There is nothing humane about this. Policy is to reduce 
supply. It is to make sure that the drug or the commodity, the 
therapy that is controlled, there will be less of it in order 
to secure savings. You have to understand that. When people 
talk about, you know, boy, we are going to do--the folks in 
favor by imposing price controls on drugs----
    Senator Scott. It sounds good.
    Mr. Moffit. It sounds great, but it also means there are 
going to be less availability of drugs----
    Senator Scott. Just less of it.
    Mr. Moffit [continuing]. and therapies.
    Senator Scott. Yes. Well, I want to thank--we are going to 
transition to our next panel, but I want thank each of you for 
being here, and by the way, they are all accessible. Every one 
of these individuals, I have had the opportunity to work with, 
and their job is to try to have--create a conversation so we 
improve our Federal Government, improve Social Security, 
improve Medicare, preserve these programs. I want thank each of 
you for being here.
    Mr. Moffit. Thank you.
    Ms. Weber. Thank you.
    Senator Scott. [Technical problems]--being here, again. I 
want to thank the first panelists and I want to thank these 
panelists. The--everybody--all of our panelists are here 
because they care about these issues, and so, one of the 
biggest things to make sure you do is find out how to reach out 
to them, because one thing I found out about Government, there 
is a lot of wonderful--I didn't know anything about it when I 
ran for Governor in 1910, but there is a lot of wonderful 
people that actually want to get good things done, and that is 
always--you read them on the paper a lot.
    I can tell you, these individuals that are first panel, 
they are all individuals that are trying to do good things, so 
this panel will talk a little bit more about what is happening 
to our seniors on the fraud side.
    I know Attorney General Moody, it is one of the big focuses 
she has had. One of the big focuses she has had based on her 
background, and she might want to talk about that a little bit, 
but, we have got thousands of victims.
    Let's see, in 2021 thousands of victims over the age of 60 
lost billions to scams. A 74 percent--think about this, just a 
74 percent increase in two years--one year. Sadly, we live in a 
world where--and you can't imagine this. I was just talking to 
the Attorney General about this, who would want to take 
advantage of somebody?
    There is plenty of opportunity to, you know, if you are in 
business, there is plenty of opportunity to do well without 
having to take advantage of people, but people pick on 
vulnerable populations for their own benefit, and they often 
get away with it, and in--sometimes it is not enough dollars 
for law enforcement's efforts, and, you know, you have got to 
figure this out, because if it is impacting you or your family, 
it is not just impacting you, it is impacting--they are going 
to impact somebody else's family, so we got to stop them.
    Some of these bad people use social media to get seniors to 
click on scam websites. They steal the identities of seniors. 
We have so many people have lost their identities, or their 
credit card has been hacked. They pretend to be relatives in 
need of cash. Some seniors are taken advantage of by some of 
their family members, which is despicable.
    One day they will realize they owe tens of thousands of 
dollars on a credit card debt. They thought they were just 
helping out a relative. I think it is sick and we have got to 
figure out how to make it stop.
    You know, as we know, our seniors are already struggling 
with inflation. They, you know, and just as a population, none 
of us probably, you know, save enough money as we should. In 
2019, I co-sponsored the Traced Act, which was signed into law 
and aimed at deterring criminal robocalls, but look, that is 
one thing.
    There is so many more things that we need to be doing, and 
I know there is things we can do at the local level, there is 
things we can do at the State level, and there is things that 
we can do at the Federal level, and we all have to do our part.
    If you believe there might be a victim of a fraud or, you 
know, anybody that was you can go to--call the national elder 
fraud hotline, and I am sure the Attorney General has one also, 
but the Federal one is 1-833-fraud11, 1-833-fraud11, and you 
know, or you can go visit justice.gov/elderjustice. It was--
when I was Governor of Florida, we had the opportunity to focus 
on this, but it is not, as you can tell with these numbers, it 
is not stopping, so we have, let me just introduce our 
panelists. First, we have got Attorney General Ashley Moody.
    Attorney General Moody came in when I finished as Governor, 
and she has done a great job. Just got reelected to her 
position and rightfully so because she has done a great job. 
She is a tireless advocate for Floridians and has zero 
tolerance for fraud of any kind, especially against seniors. 
Our second witnesses, Nicholas Weilhammer.
    Nicholas is the Associate Deputy Attorney General who heads 
the enforcement component within the Attorney General of 
Florida's Consumer Protection Division. The division protects 
consumers by pursuing individuals and entities that engage in 
unfair methods of competition or unconscionable, deceptive, and 
unfair practices in trade or commerce.
    The division also partners with others State Attorney 
Generals, as well as State and Federal agencies in joint 
enforcement efforts, and by the way, just like I talked about 
before some of them got here, we have offices around our State. 
They do also, and they--we can't solve problems we don't know 
about, so if you don't tell us, we can't solve them, so I hope 
you will, at the Federal level and at the State level, let us 
know. Finally, we have Thomas Blomberg, Dean of Criminology and 
Executive Director at the Center for Criminology and Public 
Policy Research at Florida State University.
    His current research is concerned with elderly financial 
fraud that is centered upon a national survey of citizens aged 
65 or over concerning their fraud related victimization 
experiences, so thank you, Dean, for being here.
    Let's start. Each of you, if you could take a few minutes 
and talk about what you are doing. Pam, you want to start--I 
mean, Ashley, do you want to start?

          STATEMENT OF ASHLEY MOODY, ATTORNEY GENERAL
                OF FLORIDA, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

    Ms. Moody. Sure. Thank you, Senator Scott, for arranging 
this special hearing on the Committee on Aging. This has always 
been something near and dear to my heart. I was raised by a 
mother who has dedicated her entire career to helping seniors, 
many of which were exploited by those seeking to take advantage 
of them financially, and so obviously, when I came in as 
Attorney General and was given such a breadth of 
responsibilities, focusing on seniors and fraud against them 
was a priority of mine, and I am so proud of our team. You will 
hear it in a moment from Nicholas Weilhammer who leads our 
enforcement and protection team, and we are just doing amazing 
things across the State of Florida, so proud of them.
    What I wanted to do today is, for you, Senator Scott, and 
for your Committee that may be participating via livestream, is 
go through some specific examples of cases that we have worked 
within the Attorney General's Office, because I think that 
gives a broad view of the types of scams and emerging trends 
that we are seeing around the State, and because Florida leads 
the Nation in our senior population, that should be a microcosm 
of a greater problem nationally, and it might spark ideas of 
how we might be able to better complement each other's efforts 
in aggressively going after bad actors and better protecting 
seniors.
    It is my privilege to address the steps that we have 
implemented and to make sure that nationally they are aware of 
what we are dealing with in our individual State, the great 
free State of Florida. Today, more than five million seniors 
call Florida home. Seniors remain one of the fastest growing 
population segments in our State, and many of these Americans 
served our country.
    They contributed to our economy in so many ways, and we owe 
them nothing less than to ensure they can enjoy their golden 
years free from victimization and the threat of scams. 
Unfortunately, scammers recognize that our booming senior 
population exists here in Florida, and they often seek to turn 
what was going to be a dream of retirement into a financial 
nightmare for them, and we are working tirelessly to prevent 
that.
    Our Government enforcers need effective intake systems, 
especially within law enforcement, to receive and analyze what 
these--what the senior complaints are, and then have necessary 
enforcement expertise to act on those complaints immediately.
    I see this repeatedly within law enforcement organizations, 
many times they are focused on what we would call, and I can 
tell you, as a former prosecutor and judge, we often would 
refer to the sexy topics of law enforcement.
    Oftentimes, some of the more nuanced, economical, or 
financial crimes, didn't get the same drive and determination 
and attention, and we needed to change that, and we need to 
make sure that we have the requisite expertise in criminal law 
enforcement in addition to our civil efforts.
    When I took office in 2019, I immediately assembled a 
senior protection team, which was designed to bring together 
our criminal divisions with our civil divisions, to see if 
there were overlaps in what we could be doing.
    If we are if we are seeing something specifically in a 
civil lens, is this, in fact, a criminal act? Should this be 
criminally prosecuted? We have had a lot of interplay between 
those divisions, which consists of our statewide prosecution 
team, Consumer Protection Division, Medicaid Fraud Control 
Unit, and our Office of Citizen Services, and that is the 
intake.
    We have specific intake folks within Citizen Services that 
have been trained on senior scams and senior issues, so they 
know exactly where to direct these complaints. That was not the 
case prior, and now they interact effectively and immediately 
with our investigators and our lawyers.
    The senior protection team also works with Seniors vs. 
Crime, and that is a group of Florida senior volunteers across 
our State and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to 
assist with investigations and outreach efforts.
    They consult with outside senior protection experts from 
local law enforcement, other State agencies, and private 
advocates and stakeholders to focus on senior abuse, neglect, 
fraud, senior related issues, and long term care, guardianship, 
law enforcement training, and educational outreach.
    The team identifies emerging scams, spots trends, and tries 
to stay ahead of changes in technology that are routinely being 
used to prey on seniors. One of the other things we immediately 
saw when I came into office was, there will always be a 
blueprint for a traditional scam, but scammers will take 
advantage of new ways to use the blueprint to trick people, so 
there will be a twist on an old age scam, and they will use new 
technologies to take an old blueprint scam and try and get to 
people through a new technology, whether that is a new app or 
whether that is a new type of service through robocalls 
designed to target specific people, and so we immediately said 
we need to do something different. In addition to beefing up 
and more streamlining and developing expertise in this area, we 
have also got to realize and remember that preventing crime is 
just as important and making sure people can protect 
themselves.
    Pushing out as soon as we start seeing a trend and a 
particular scam, pushing that out as soon as possible through 
either our Consumer Alert Program or our Scams At A Glance 
program both developed when I got into office, and that way, if 
we start seeing the trend, we don't want to wait for it to take 
root across Florida.
    We want to make sure that seniors have that information as 
soon as we are seeing it, and, you know, and I could throw the 
examples out there to you, whether that is a grandparent scam 
or whether it is a romance scam, I could go through.
    A lot of times we will see a twist on those, and they are 
targeting specific people and they are in their recruiting 
people into this scam in new ways, and we want to get that 
information as soon as possible.
    I can go through now, or I can come back to specific cases 
after my colleagues have had a chance to speak----
    Senator Scott. Why don't we go on, let everybody talk, and 
then we will go back to the cases, because I think that will be 
interesting people also.
    Ms. Moody. Absolutely. All right. Thank you.
    Senator Scott. Mr. Weilhammer.

               STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS WEILHAMMER,

             ASSOCIATE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR

               ENFORCEMENT, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

    Mr. Weilhammer. Thank you, Senator Scott. My name is Nick 
Weilhammer. It is my pleasure to serve as Associate Deputy 
Attorney General for enforcement for Attorney General Ashley 
Moody.
    To reiterate the remarks of Attorney General Ashley Moody, 
the AG's Office sees a number of threats to seniors and their 
retirement savings, health care, and overall fiscal health. 
Government imposters, charity scams, identity theft, 
coronavirus scams, romance scams, and tech support scams are 
just a few of the scams perpetrated on our seniors.
    Having a skilled team of professionals to receive 
complaints by seniors such as Attorney General Moody's Senior 
Protection Team has proved essential to enforcement. While 
State Attorneys General have powerful enforcement tools, it is 
crucial to have a dedicated team that is qualified to spot 
senior issues and address a complainant's physical or mental 
disabilities, if present.
    This improved consumer intake process has resulted in 
millions of dollars in recoveries through her enforcement 
actions. As one example, Attorney General Moody took action to 
shut down a water filter company, falsely promising to treat 
serious medical conditions.
    This company falsely claimed that use of its molecular 
hydrogen water machines could assist in ailments ranging from 
cancer, depression, diabetes, lupus, skin disorders, and other 
chronic diseases.
    Senator Scott. And find a date too?
    Mr. Weilhammer. These high priced products, ranging from 
$6,700 to almost $10,000, came with false promises of wide 
ranging health benefits and attractive financing. As part of 
the company's marketing strategy, it offered a case study 
program that purportedly provided customers with monthly 
compensation payments in exchange for providing positive 
feedback about the machines.
    The company claimed the payments would offset some or all 
of the financing cost of the filter systems. According to 
consumer complaints, the company did not provide the promised 
compensation, sent checks sporadically, mailed consumers 
worthless checks, or the checks stopped coming altogether.
    We encourage Floridians to be vigilant and stay apprised of 
the latest scams, which can rapidly change in complexity and 
scope. Attorney General Moody's Consumer Alert Program is 
designed to inform the public of emerging scams, new methods 
used to commit fraud, trends in consumer complaints, and other 
deceptive practices utilized to take advantage of Floridians.
    There are also opportunities for Floridians to volunteer as 
a senior sleuth. Seniors vs. Crime is a special project of the 
Florida Attorney General's Office, run by seniors who volunteer 
to help victims of senior targeted crimes, or deceptive or 
unfair trade practices.
    Senior sleuths assist older Floridians by reviewing 
complaints, pursuing restitution for consumers, providing 
advice to vulnerable populations, and informing others of 
common scams.
    I thank the Committee for its important work in studying 
and highlighting these issues, and for allowing me the 
opportunity to share enforcement actions taken by Attorney 
General Ashley Moody.
    Senator Scott. Thanks. Dean.

           STATEMENT OF THOMAS BLOMBERG, PH.D., DEAN

           OF CRIMINOLOGY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER

          FOR CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH,

         FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

    Dr. Blomberg. Thank you, and thank you, Chairman Scott, for 
this incredible Committee. I have been working in this area for 
a number of years and it is just wonderful. Although, I have 
learned a lot here today.
    This first panel, I don't want to kind of contribute to 
more doom and gloom, but the broader context that we live in, 
and particularly our seniors, it is just, it is very, very 
challenging. My time, I am going to talk about the problem of 
the financial exploitation of older adults.
    I will then turn to some risk factors and consequences, and 
then I will turn to some evidence based policy responses, both 
for the prevention of financial fraud of older adults, as well 
as post victimization surveys after you have been victimized. 
Very importantly, my comments are based upon the perceptions of 
older adults living in Florida, okay.
    We went in and we interviewed, we held town hall meetings, 
we did focus groups, so what I am sharing with you is what the 
older citizens educated us about what they face and so on, and 
very importantly, we talked to those that became victimized and 
those that did not, and that was a very important thing because 
not everyone, despite being 80, 85, falls victim and yet some 
65 year old, as many of you know, do fall victim. With regard 
to the problem, I think most of you know, our older adult 
population is the fastest growing segment of the U.S. 
population.
    We currently have 56 million people. Every single day, 
10,000 more people in America turn 65, so today, 10,000 more, 
yesterday, 10,000 more, and by 2030, 71 million people will be 
age 65 or older. Now, also importantly, these aging American 
adults control 70 percent of the invested wealth in this 
country, 70 percent.
    Their target for financial fraud and other forms of abuse 
is getting bigger and bigger. The problem is significant. When 
we look at it--again, as Senator Scott mentioned, so many 
people, I am sure out here in the audience, you know people 
that have been victimized or you yourself have been targeted.
    In surveys of older adults, every single older adult 
expressed that they had been targeted, not necessarily 
successful, but they would been targeted, and what are the 
targets? Telemarketing. Many of you know about that. Charitable 
donations, real estate, automobile, home repair, lottery, 
sweepstakes, health caretaker, financial schemes, such a range, 
and as the Attorney General mentioned earlier, these things are 
just being tweaked and refined. We go out, and my colleague, 
Dr. Ran Kelly in the audience, we give a lot of talks. We are 
working with ARP, we are working with different groups.
    We go out and we give talks, and the audience comes back to 
us, and some of these are distinguished professors, doctors, 
lawyers, anybody. Nobody is immune from these types of scams. 
They are sophisticated and so on, and it is just so widespread, 
but what we know, very importantly, what we know is the tip of 
the iceberg, because most cases, by far the overwhelming 
majority of cases go unreported. They are not reported. Why? 
Oh, there is a variety of reasons. Embarrassment.
    Often over 50 percent of the cases are perpetrated by 
friends or relatives. You don't want to get your relative or 
your friend in trouble. Feeling foolish, and later, I hope to 
share with you a particular case of an American hero, who--and 
it was just one of the saddest things. Another thing that you 
might not be aware of, many people do not report because of 
fear of losing their independent living arrangements. That 
well-meaning relatives, sons, daughters will come in and say, 
mom, dad, it is time to move on, right, and so a variety of 
reasons, but the very important thing is, we only know the tip 
of the iceberg, so what are some of the risk factors and 
consequences of financial fraud? Physical and cognitive health, 
which includes changes or declines in physical and memory, just 
cognition.
    Those things change as we get older, right. We have certain 
changes we go through. Major medical events or diagnoses. We 
talk to a lot of people that said, I have a spouse that is 
dying of cancer, and they want to replace my air conditioning, 
I just replaced it six months ago, but if I have the money, I 
will just go ahead and write the check, so more important 
priorities, changing circumstances, and psychological 
conditions, anxiety and depression. These are just some of the 
physical conditions. The social factors, retirement. We have 
people now that are living longer, but also they are more 
wealthy than they used to be, despite all the inflation and so 
on, and they are relocating.
    Their social networks are not the same and so on, and 
again, as I mentioned earlier, incapacitation of a spouse. 
Suddenly now you are a caregiver and so on, so a different set 
of circumstances in which your decisionmaking can be altered 
because you have other priorities. What are the consequences? 
Reductions in the quality of life.
    I can tell you when we are going through these interviews, 
it was one of the--it was just shocking, and it was so sad and 
hurtful that you couldn't help but get emotional on some of the 
things that these people, as the Attorney General mentioned 
earlier, in their prime point of life, in their golden years, 
were now going through hell. That is the only word I can use.
    Difficulty recovering financial losses. They are on a fixed 
income. We heard about inflation and so on and so forth, and 
how do you recover? They are living on a pretty tight budget, 
and then severe feelings of anxiety and fear, not wanting to 
answer the telephone, not wanting to even pick up the mail 
because of fear, fear, pervasive fear.
    Also suffering in isolation. Don't want to go next door and 
bother anybody because I don't want to be a burden and I 
certainly don't want to tell my children, so they suffer 
frequently in isolation. Skipping meals and prescribed 
medications because they can't afford them, and then, very 
importantly, premature death.
    Studies have been done showing victimization, older adults 
versus no victimization. Those that have been victimized, given 
all the stress, anxiety, and the changes in the quality of 
life, die prematurely, so at FSU Criminology, we are about 
bringing research to life, so what do we do with this research? 
What are we recommending?
    The first thing we want, prevention. We feel prevention is 
the key, and so we are working with a major health provider. 
Florida State has a partnership with Mayo Clinic, and we are 
working with developing a risk assessment instruments that 
health care providers and other interested parties can use to 
show that here are risk factors, and to alert that particular 
person, and very importantly, their support system.
    Look, this is something you want to be aware of, so risk 
assessment instruments are critical to prevention, and then 
additionally, since so many people--there is currently a 30,000 
places like The Villages that are going up around the United 
States. Saint Joe Paper Company is building--they are calling 
it The Villages on steroids, so these retirement communities 
are exploding, and we would like to see comprehensive--
comprehensive community service agencies devoted to providing 
services. It came out, first of all, education is critical.
    Education classes would be one thing, the development of 
financial safety plans. Shopping buddy programs, shopping buddy 
where a widow has someone that will go help with a car purchase 
or car repairs and so on.
    Emergency relief funds for victims, and very importantly, a 
24 hour hotline where people can call and get answers to next 
questions on best steps.
    Senator Scott. Thank you, Dean. Attorney General, can you 
talk--two things, about a couple cases, but also just talk 
about you work with local law enforcement, you work with State 
Attorneys, and so how does that all work at the State level?
    Ms. Moody. That is a great question. One of the biggest 
questions we get all the time is, I don't even know who to 
call, and a lot of times, especially if you are looking at the 
scams, so, you know, the 21st century scams, identity theft, 
robo text, robocalls, and fraudulent technical support, those 
are all dealing with cyber issues.
    Cyberspace is the new frontier for scammers, and it is 
important to remember, a lot of these things will be crimes. 
There will be an actual, whether it is a Federal statute or a 
State statute, that is a criminal act, and law enforcement, 
whether that is a Federal agency, or a State, county, or city 
law enforcement agency can go after a particular crime. If it 
is a crime, that would be prosecuted by the relevant 
prosecuting authority. If it is a Federal agency that is 
looking into it, then that would be prosecuted by a U.S. 
Attorney's Office.
    If it is a State agency, a county agency, or a city agency 
that is looking into a criminal act, that would be prosecuted 
either by the statewide prosecutor, and in certain, very 
limited certain situations, or more probably, one of your 
Circuit State Attorneys, and as you know, Senator Scott, former 
Governor, there are 20 circuits within our State.
    Each of those circuits has an elected prosecutor, and they 
have working with them assistant prosecutors, and they would 
help prosecute criminal acts. Now, there are also State 
statutes that prevent deceptive or deceitful fraudulent trade 
practices, and that is where you are using these deceptive 
practices to trick consumers, and those are civil actions, and 
many times our civil attorneys can get injunctive relief.
    Sometimes we can get either fines or compensation back to 
victims. We also work with the FTC and other Federal agencies 
in some of our larger cases, and because seniors are more and 
more getting more familiar with computers and smartphones, this 
really is a trend that the Federal agencies are going to have 
to stay on top of, because, as you may imagine, many of the 
offenders are overseas or they are not within the State of 
Florida, and yet they are victimizing our very dense, very 
large population of Florida seniors, and so that is when we 
have to really be able to rely on our Federal partners, which 
is why I was suggesting to Senator Scott that making sure we 
have a specially funded law enforcement unit with specially 
funded intake folks and investigators is so important as it 
relates to senior crime.
    We have done that here in Florida in order to make sure 
that we are best set up, but in many of these cases, the 
offenders are not within Florida, and we have to utilize our 
Federal partners to be able to stop the activity.
    Now, we can do our best to prevent, we can do our best to 
warn, we can do our best to try and shut down things, but to go 
after and put these people behind bars so they can't keep 
victimizing people, that is key, and utilizing our Federal 
resources is going to be so important.
    Senator Scott. If they call--but you have offices, okay. 
You have got, you know, a hotline. You have got ways to reach, 
and you can refer things----
    Ms. Moody. Of course, yes.
    Senator Scott. Right, and that is one of the benefits of 
knowing who your Attorney General is and knowing where to call 
there.
    Ms. Moody. One of the great things that I am so proud of 
is, we have streamlined this, and we have specially trained 
intake people, so they understand exactly where to refer 
people, but some of these new age cyberspace scams, you are 
looking at identity theft and recent data suggests that Florida 
is second in the Nation for identity theft, and of course, that 
occurs when someone attempts to use the private, personal 
information of another person to commit fraud.
    In Florida, we see cases where personal information of 
seniors is stolen or misused by someone close to that senior, 
such as a caregiver, guardian, loved one, employees of 
rehabilitation centers, or nursing homes, and so our State 
adopted enhanced criminal penalties for this type of conduct, 
and many of you may remember during the last legislative 
session, my office worked very hard with lawmakers. We helped 
come up with language and helped push a greater senior 
protection legislation. We think this is a model for the rest 
of the country. Again, I think Florida leads in many areas, but 
specifically as it relates to senior protection.
    The law will strengthen senior protection by preventing the 
intentional isolation of vulnerable adults, allowing for 
earlier intervention by law enforcement and prosecutors to 
prevent irreversible physical harm or financial loss to 
vulnerable Florida seniors, and strengthening accountability of 
guardians and agents under powers of attorney.
    Our Office of statewide Prosecution also has additional 
authority to go after those who commit crimes against elderly 
and disabled adults, so just to give you some idea of the types 
of things we are seeing by people being victimized by those 
close to them, we had an arrest of a Florida couple that stole 
money and personal identification of a Florida senior, and they 
were using the victim's debit card to purchase their own 
personal products for their personal use.
    We worked with law enforcement to arrest a live in 
caretaker that was charged with stealing thousands of dollars 
from a Florida senior. We had a task force that issued 20 
investigative demands to 20 gateway providers regarding 
robocalls and unsolicited calls.
    We know by far the most prolific scams are perpetrated by 
telemarketers and robocallers seeking to obtain sensitive 
personal information to steal identities or gain access to 
consumers' bank accounts or other assets, and so last December, 
we announced that consumers nationwide would receive $1.8 
million in refunds as a result of actions taken by our office 
working with the Federal Trade Commission to shut down a 
massive robocall scheme.
    Recipients included more than 1,300 Florida victims that 
were targeted by the company, and it bombarded those consumers 
with more than one billion unsolicited robocalls, pitching a 
variety of product and services, including a fraudulent medical 
alert system, and many of the illegal robocalls targeted 
seniors and tricked consumers into paying for supposedly free 
in-home medical alert devices.
    Even though they claimed they were free, they held 
consumers responsible for monthly payments, and once consumers 
attempted to cancel, it forced them to pay cancelation 
penalties. Those organizations and people were banned from 
telemarketing and from misrepresenting terms associated with 
the sale of the product or service, so whether it is these 
robocalls, whether it is fraudulent technical support, as 
technology is increasing, we are seeing more and more 
victimization and the ability to target more people as a result 
of a particular scam, so we are incredibly proud of what we 
have been able to accomplish within our office, and I don't see 
this slowing down, and in fact, I do believe that cyberspace is 
the new frontier for scammers, especially those that reside 
overseas.
    Senator Scott. Yes. Then you crack down on something and 
they just set up another entity, so it gets really frustrating.
    Ms. Moody. That is why I am a big proponent of making sure 
we are dealing with victims, helping victims not just in this 
area, but whether it is human trafficking or any other criminal 
enterprise. It is important that we help those that are 
specifically targeted and harmed, and we help them recover, but 
at the same time, we cannot forget, and many organizations 
start moving specifically to dealing with those harms and 
addressing that, but we cannot forget, you have to go after 
aggressively the offenders and put them away, and put them away 
for a long time, or else as soon as they get out, they are 
going to start----
    Senator Scott. Yes, they will do another one.
    Ms. Moody [continuing]. victimizing other people, and there 
is no reason that we shouldn't reexamine our criminal justice 
system, making sure we are doing the best we can, making sure 
that we are improving our systems when necessary, but we can't 
lose sight of the fact that there are people out there whose 
agenda in life is to victimize others and harm others----
    Senator Scott. Take advantage of other people.
    Ms. Moody [continuing]. We have to not lose sight of 
putting those people behind bars where they can't victimize 
others.
    Senator Scott. Dean, you want to--do you----
    Dr. Blomberg. Yes, I agree.
    Senator Scott. Dean, you were talking--you had a specific 
case you wanted to talk about.
    Dr. Blomberg. Yes. We had, during the course of our 
research, we had a gentleman who was a heart recipient during 
World War II. He is a hero, and he and his wife had invested in 
a luxury cruise of a series of trips, and Seniors vs. Crime has 
not been mentioned but what a wonderful organization, and many, 
many of the people that we spoke to, they, without Senior vs. 
Crime, they would have been lost, and just a great, great 
organization.
    Ms. Moody. Let me just plug in here. This is a project that 
was set up by our office, and it recruits people like you that 
are here today listening to this and understand what a problem 
it is, to train yourself and go out not only educate your 
fellow seniors, but also dig down into the information.
    Is this something that needs to be referred to our either 
our civil attorneys or our criminal attorneys, or is it just 
something that you can go and help them? It is a great program. 
They serve thousands of Floridians, and if you are interested, 
please let us know. We are always looking for great volunteers. 
Sorry about that.
    Dr. Blomberg. That is all right. Yes.
    Senator Scott. Anyway, I think the Attorney--or do you 
have--you have got a head out and you are going to have to 
leave, is that right?
    Ms. Moody. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Scott. I don't know if this is a good time. I just, 
I want thank you for being here because I know you have got a 
busy schedule.
    Ms. Moody. This is incredibly important to me. If me being 
here in any way added to the information that was provided to 
you, sir, and your work and how you can be effective in 
combating senior fraud, I was glad to do it. Thank you for 
including me. Thank you for including our office.
    I am sure, if there are any followup questions, my esteemed 
colleague here can answer them thoroughly. Thank you so much.
    Senator Scott. Thank you for being here, and Dean, you are 
going to----
    Ms. Moody. You want this back, I assume. [Technical 
problems]--you might want this back.
    Senator Scott. Okay. Bye. Okay, Dean, you are going to----
    Dr. Blomberg. Yes. I was just going to share with you this 
story of this gentleman. He was in his 80's, a Purple Heart 
recipient. He and his wife had invested in this scam, and he 
met with the Senior vs. Crime person who had investigated the 
scammers, and they had already pulled up stakes out of Florida 
and moved to Texas, so they were gone, and so the Senior vs. 
Crime person was having breakfast with this American hero and 
his wife, and he said to him, he said, I am so sorry to tell 
you that they--I can't get your money back. They have already 
pulled up stakes.
    This hero, he started sobbing, tears coming down and he 
said, it is not about the money. It is not about the money. I 
feel so foolish. I feel like I can no longer handle my affairs, 
and this is the kind of situation in which people fall victim 
and their whole quality of life--that gentleman was no longer 
going to feel competent in making decisions.
    Very important point. We also interviewed those that had 
not fallen victim, and so do keep this in mind. We start 
talking about a risk assessment instrument.
    Those individuals, like many of you out in the audience, 
that remain skeptical, that read the fine print, that slammed 
the phone down, that realize there is no free lunch, right, 
there is no free lunch, they avoided the kind of cognitive 
transformation that facilitated victimization, and that is what 
we are hoping to codify in a risk assessment so that we can 
educate those that are at risk.
    Senator Scott. So the Nigerian letter is not real?
    Dr. Blomberg. That is right. That is right. Not real.
    Senator Scott [continuing]. have gotten some letters from 
overseas and we just got to help them a little bit, and then 
you read about it, and I think I got one, one time about, I 
have some relatives somewhere around the world that just need a 
little bit of help.
    Dr. Blomberg. Right.
    Senator Scott. That I have never heard of.
    Dr. Blomberg. One--Florida State University is having just 
a--just a magnitude of applicants applying for admission to 
Florida State University, like about 20,000 more from Nigeria 
than we have ever had before because looking to get some sort 
of financial assistance, so they have got a scam going.
    What Florida State is going to do is require a $200 fee to 
apply and that should shut it down, and then those that get 
accepted, that fee would be waived, but the scams, as the 
Attorney General said, they are just changing daily.
    Senator Scott. Yes. Nick, give--can you give, tell the 
audience, just tell how you guys work. Just pick some case and 
how it went through? How somebody got to you, and then how you 
were able to prosecute, and how you are able to prevent this 
from happening again.
    Mr. Weilhammer. Sure. One of the great resources we have is 
a hotline. If you have a pen and want to take this down, it is 
866-9-noscam. That is 866-9-noscam. A lot of our calls come in 
that way from complainants, and boy, we see the gamut of the 
scams. Construction fraud is a big one, and so usually, 
unfortunately, the money has already left. They are not getting 
a response. The phone has stopped being answered, and they feel 
like they have been scammed, and what should they do next? We 
are a good first stop.
    We can work with other State agencies that may have 
jurisdiction over the license, if there was one. That is very 
important. Always check and make sure the license professional 
does in fact have a license, is ensured. We can work with that 
agency to make sure any licensure action that needs to be taken 
can be taken.
    From there, we take a look at deployment of our office 
resources, whether or not local law enforcement needs to be 
involved, whether or not it is something larger. During our 
hurricanes, of course, we have a lot of people coming around 
from the Southeast, from the Northeast, coming down and not 
having a proper license and committing scams and taking your 
money and running with it.
    One of the great resources we have to help prevent these 
scams, we have this consumer alerts that we issue. You can sign 
up for on our website, myfloridalegal.com. We also have 
profiles and scams at a glance, and these kind of pinpoint 
exactly what we are seeing on the ground as sort of the latest 
developments of a scam.
    How to report it, what to do next, how to look out for it, 
and how to share. As the professor told you, it doesn't mean 
anything if we are not sharing the knowledge. We need to make 
sure that everyone is aware of some of these scams. There were 
some great ideas that he mentioned, and if there is any 
residents that can implement some of these shopping buddies, I 
love that idea, to help prevention. That is really going to be 
key for all of us.
    Senator Scott. Well, I just want thank you guys, everybody 
for being here, but here is what I would liked--one thing I 
have tried to do in my time as Governor and this job is try to 
bring people together, so you see what type of resources are 
out there.
    What the Attorney General is trying to do, what Nick is 
trying to do is, is the biggest thing we can do is educate 
people, right. We can--if we can get people to know what they 
ought to do to prevent this is best thing happening, but then 
we have to do what the Attorney General said. We have got to 
prosecute people that do the wrong thing because they are going 
to do it again if they have done it the first time, and so you 
have an Attorney General that is willing to do that.
    We, you know, I think we all have our expectation our U.S. 
Attorneys will do the same thing, but one thing that I--what 
the Attorney General does, they have a great relationship 
working with local and Federal law enforcement to be able to 
prosecute.
    One thing I like, what the Dean is doing is, trying to use 
his resource to find out where are the big problems and how do 
we educate people, so anybody that can help him as he--and his 
team, as he gets more information out there and has a 
cumulative information, the more everybody knows about this, 
the less is going to happen.
    We have all been targeted. We all have been targeted. I 
mean, it seems like every relative I know has to get a new 
credit card every few months, all right. I mean, we are all 
getting targeted every day, and it is easy thing with the 
internet now.
    We got to fight for this, and many of our seniors, I think 
it is exactly what the Dean said, they don't want it--they 
don't know who to call. They are very embarrassed, and they 
don't want to be--they don't want to have a relative come and 
say, well, I don't trust you anymore, you are going to have to, 
you know, go. Somebody is going have to take care of you. That 
would be devastating for all of us. We all want to live as 
independent as we want, as long as we can.
    Thank you for being here, and I hope everybody will reach 
out to them, but thanks for being here, and this is the end of 
the hearing.
    [Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the Committee hearing was 
adjourned.]



      
      
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                                APPENDIX

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                      Prepared Witness Statements

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