The Aging Boom

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Delegates question Bush Administration control

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Delegates vote on top 50 resolutions

Forty three delegates from Ohio are joining over one thousand others from around the country this week at the White House Conference on Aging. The event has been held about once every decade since 1961 to examine issues facing older Americans. Yesterday (Mon) delegates heard a good dose of bad news and some of them complained that the Bush Administration was playing politics. WKSU's Mark Urycki reports:

This fifth White House Conference on Aging has a half dozen themes to work on - like long term care, working after retirement, and elder friendly communities. But under it all is a drum beat foreshadowing the arrival of baby boomers into retirement. The Comptroller General of the United States, David Walker referred to them as a natural disaster.

WALKER: We face something that is unprecedented in the history of this country. It's called a demographic tidal wave - or tsunami. It is the retirement of the Baby Boom Generation, which is followed by a baby bust. It starts in about 2011, when the first Baby Boomer reaches 65 and is eligible for Medicare. And it grows. Unlike most tidal waves, which recede, this one will never recede - and we are not prepared.

Not prepared, said Walker, because the country cannot afford the Social Security and especially Medicare costs of so many elders.

WALKER: Ladies and gentlemen, this is an Argentina Scenario. And for those of you who do not know what I mean by that, Argentina defaulted. The largest in history. Ladies and gentlemen, many people talk about Social Security's trust funds having adequate assets to pay benefits at 100 percent until 2041. Under this scenario, we're going to have to worry about paying our bills period.

Walker didn't offer specific answers -- but implied that both tax hikes and benefit cuts will have to occur.

The chairman of the Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company, Robert Essner, called the impending jump in Alzheimer's cases an epidemic and said the national health care system could implode. Noting that his company is researching drugs to fight the disease, Essner called for fast track approvals from the Food and Drug Administration along the lines of those given for AIDS medication.

Less government regulation was a common refrain from speakers. Former U.S. Senator and now Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne wanted to pay for long term care through private help - spurred by tax incentives.

KEMPTHORNE: As the principal payers for long-term care services, state Medicaid programs are the natural laboratories for such significant change. But outdated federal regulations often act as a roadblock to real reform. If we're truly going to solve the problems of the current long-term care system, we must turn our focus away from an antiquated, regulation-based system and toward one that focuses on results.

Former Congressman Hal Daub of Omaha, said government incentives are also needed to get people to invest in private pensions. He said Social Security and Medicare in their current form are not sustainable.

DAUB: We must seize this transformation time to design and develop governmental incentives and private initiatives to become less dependent on tax-paid or subsidized benefits and retirement because plainly - and realistically - the money is just not there. We have the time, the next five years, to accomplish those goals.

No one directly brought up President Bush's proposal to partly privatize Social Security but it was clearly the elephant in the room. Some delegates got fed up with the speeches and tried to offer their own amendments.

AUDIO: (Inaudible shouting)) No, I said, why don't you give us the petitions when we go for the break. We have three more speakers (inaudible shouting). We have three more speakers and I'd really appreciate it if you would - no, I'd really appreciate it if you would give us the petitions when we have the, uh... (inaudible shouting).

Although the conference is under the auspices of the White House, the delegates argue it is a democratic body controlled by delegates. But Marvin Schachter of the California Commission on Aging said the Bush Administration was pulling strings to restrict the discussions.

SCHACHTER: The President of the American Gerontological Association is a delegate here. The president of the National Council on Aging is a delegate here. There are people here who are officers in AARP. Not one of these people is allowed on the platform as part of the program. They filled the program with businesspeople and politicians. There were real experts here who worked in the field, who know what the issues are, who know what - who talk to seniors. These people don't talk to seniors.

The delegates have been hashing out issues facing older Americans for the past 14 months at listening sessions held in Ohio and every other state. From those meetings, 73 resolutions were written. The delegates yesterday voted on the top 50 to implement. But Pedro Rodriguez of Philadelphia said the offerings did not reflect the local discussions

RODRIGUEZ: We don't have that opportunity now. The resolutions that we voted on - the official resolutions - were too general and too vague. Nothing specific. That does not address the problems that we are seeing.

Rodriguez and other delegates tried to submit petitions to amend resolutions from the floor - one of them called for government negotiations with drug companies to achieve the best prices in the new Medicaid drug plans.

RODRIGUEZ: Uh, because this crazy way of having one small plan in California negotiate one price, which is totally different from one in New York, it doesn't make any logical sense - it's not rational. It's a waste of taxpayers' money.

URYCKI: You think if the federal government does the negotiating, they'll have more power?

RODRIGUEZ: You know I have 45 million consumers, what price you gonna give me for Lipitor? That kind of questions that we wanted. That's how you protect the integrity - the financial integrity - of the program. By making sure it doesn't go bankrupt.

URYCKI: Why don't you think the conference accepted this, or wrote this into their own resolutions?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, this conference is really a demonstration of the low level, I think, of enthusiasm and, I guess, interest the White House has placed on aging issues. As you can see, the president is not here.

Rodriguez said although delegates expected to see details of the resolutions weeks ago, most had only received them last Thursday or Friday. The president of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, Tony Fransetta, said delegates in local meetings had spoken out against privatizing Social Security but now don't have the opportunity to go on the record about it.

FRANSETTA: They crafted the resolutions for the conference, set it up in an act of disenfranchisement, where you have no ability to craft any of the language in the resolutions.

URYCKI: But are any of the resolutions dealing with privatizing Social Security?

FRANSETTA: The resolutions are so ambiguous; I don't know that they deal with anything. They will come out of this saying whatever they want to say. Bu, without substance and direction from the delegates, then there's nothing meaningful happened.

URYCKI: Is there precedents for delegates being able to submit petitions?

FRANSETTA: Yes! At every White House conference that they'd ever had, the 10 percent rule applied, where the delegates could call resolutions out, amend, structure and modify resolutions. This is the first time ever; you did not have that right.

Three of the Speakers, were appointees. The three elected officials who spoke were all Republican. And three of the four members of congress on the Policy Committee are republicans. But Committee Chairman Dorcas Hardy said they were not orchestrated by the Bush administration.

HARDY: No, that's incorrect. We've had more - almost 150,000 people over the last 18 months - give us input as to what the issues are for today and tomorrow. And the delegates have been well represented in their training sessions. All the issues are well represented here. And we just don't have time to wordsmith things; we need action plans.

URYCKI: So it's not like the Bush Administration is, sort of, bending this to follow their own.

HARDY: No, no! The policy committee is bipartisan. You will see things in there that, um, I had to compromise a lot on. And, uh, so it's not - we really tried hard to stay above the fray and to give the delegates the opportunity to fill in the blanks underneath. If you want to strengthen Medicare, that sounds like very pie-in-the-sky. Well, I want to know how you want to do that. (The) next delegate may not want to strengthen Medicare and that's what the voting process is about. They're happy with what they got.

URYCKI: How much what is done here (is) going to impact the president and Congress?

HARDY: Well, when we get the final report to them, first of all, the next 100 days is spent on putting together the draft of a final report. The governors will have a chance to comment. And then the report goes next summer to the Congress and the president. And I would expect there's going to be some really good ideas coming out of this. You've heard the speakers. They've really been helpful to frame some of the agenda. We have laws and policies in this country today that are 40 and 50 years old. And we haven't kept up with your generation, my generation and even the current seniors. So we've got to make some changes.

Reporting from Washington, I'm Mark Urycki, 89.7 WKSU.

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