As any older Vermonter will tell you, the strains on the average household budget are becoming nearly impossible to sustain—and the future isn’t looking much brighter. Indeed, there are a host of issues impacting our seniors. The cost of health care and prescription drugs, the cost of long-term care, heating fuel prices, taxes, access to affordable housing and adequate transportation are a few that top the list. The issues are broad and complex for aging Americans, but there is common thread that runs through them all—affordability!

The financial mess our country faces today only adds fuel to this fire. The American health care system is broken and our financial security is in jeopardy. With a new Congress taking office and a new President, perhaps progress can be made on some of these fronts. It is refreshing to see politicians finally rolling up their sleeves and working together in a bipartisan fashion as they attempt to address the nation’s current economic crisis. Many of our elected officials seem ready to put aside partisan squabbling in order to repair the country’s faltering economy.

Let’s hope the dissipating partisan gridlock is a trend that will continue, because the American people need real help with real problems. Never has the time been more crucial for a commitment to finding real solutions and an end to political rhetoric.

Individuals, businesses and elected officials must cooperate and work together to create solutions that will benefit all generations. That is why AARP launched Divided We Fail, a bipartisan initiative that holds accountable our elected officials and urges them to work cooperatively toward finding solutions to the critical issues facing us all. Divided We Fail demands that those who have committed to representing the American people actually do so by taking action and resolving these key issues.

Americans have repeatedly stated that the economy is their number one concern, and that’s only been underscored by the economic turmoil of the past few months. Average Americans, now more than ever, are being directly affected by the crisis on Wall Street. How will they keep their homes? Pay for their children’s education? Pay for health care? And how will they ever be able to afford to stop working when they are no longer able to do so? For more and more Americans, it is a hard to believe that they’ll ever be able to achieve the cornerstone of the American dream: lifetime financial security.

Aside from the obvious and immediate economic security concerns, Americans tell us in surveys that health care is the next most pressing issue they face. Understandably so, given that the numbers of people affected by the broken health care system in our country continues to grow every day, with an estimated 46 million Americans, including 65,000 Vermonters, currently uninsured.

Vermont has made some significant progress in addressing both the cost and access to health care in our state and is considered a national leader in health care reform. Nonetheless, we can never be successful without substantial changes and reforms at the federal level.

Again, rising costs are at the core of the crisis in health care. The total cost of employer-sponsored health insurance for families has increased 72 percent in just the past six years. The average yearly cost of employer-sponsored insurance for a family of four is now $12,106 and for the individual worker it is $4,479.

With costs rising at this rate, employers have little choice but to pass on the high cost of offering health insurance to their employees. Premiums rise every year as well as the other out-of-pocket expenses such as co-payments and deductibles. Of course the numbers of uninsured and under-insured is startling, and only adds to the spiraling cost for all.

And yet in the midst of all this despairing news, there is hope. By joining Divided We Fail, Americans are coming together to demand solutions. We are building a groundswell of voices to demand that elected officials make health and financial security front and center issues and the focal points for fixing our broken economy. And it won’t stop there as we will demand action from the Obama Administration and newly elected officials to deliver real solutions.

Join us by lending your voice to the chorus of millions in Divided We Fail. Together we can help turn the American nightmare back into the American dream – for now and for generations to come.

Go to www.dividedwefail.org to learn more.

Jim Leddy is the AARP Vermont State President.