The New York StateWide Senior Action Council is a grassroots membership organization consisting of individual senior citizens and senior citizen clubs throughout New York. NYSSAC was organized in 1972 from War on Poverty funds with the goal of developing an organization of senior New Yorkers who could advocate for services, programs and policies impacting older persons with the focus on low-income and minority seniors. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, NYSSAC provided training and educational workshops on subjects including food stamps; Supplemental Security Income; Energy Assistance Programs, and Crime Victim and Prevention programs for seniors. The 1980s saw NYSSAC play a key role advocating legislation in support of New York's older population. A New York Foundation grant funded the Development and Restructuring Project in 1988, making NYSSAC financially self-sufficient for basic operations, while the Rural Senior Health Organizing Project expanded operations and conducted research with funds from the Campaign for Human Development. The health care reform battles of the early 1990s generated a large body of records from the activity of NYSSAC's Patients' Rights Project. The failure of the Clinton Health Plan and entrenchment of the HMO system made issues such as the Patient's Bill of Rights; Diagnosis Related Groups reform and Peer Review Organization management, important targets for NYSSAC's action. As of 2001, in addition to the core senior action council NYSSAC includes the Patients' Rights Project, dealing with the Patient's Hotline, PRO and DRG issues; the Supplemental Security Income Advocacy Group, with 50 groups statewide, and the Rural Senior Health Organizing Project.
From the description of New York StateWide Senior Action Council records, 1974-2001. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 56099292
