The Claude Pepper Center is dedicated to keeping Sen. Pepper’s vision of America and sense of moral purpose central to the nation’s public life. The Claude Pepper Center intends to achieve this mission through research, policy analysis, public information, educational and advocacy initiatives focusing on health care, long-term health care,and retirement security for older Americans and citizens of other countries.

Our major advocacy initiatives are focused on:

• Preserving and strengthening the role of the non profit aging network in the Medicaid long-term care system.
• Supporting the expansion of the Green House and other small house alternatives to the traditional, large nursing home design.
• Enhancing the regulatory framework for assisted living facilities with a focus on quality of life standards.
• Increasing pay and benefits for paid caregivers in long-term care programs.
• Implementing a mandatory federal social insurance program for long-term care services, including possibly through the Medicare program.
• Increasing Social Security benefits to compensate for erosion of retirement programs in the private sector.
• Reducing the amount of money spent out of pocket for Medicare covered health care services.

All of our activities are dedicated to sustaining the senator’s view that “the national attitude toward old people has made a 180-degree turn. More and more, younger generations have come to realize that in their elders they have a precious and useful asset, not a burden. Old people are the same persons they were when they were young. Some may not hear so well, may have to wear glasses, maybe are a step slower when they walk. But they are not useless, and they must not be treated as outcasts, as more and more Americans have come to realize.”

Information on many of our projects and related topics can be found throughout this website, as well as on our Facebook page.