AARP Looks Towards Boomers in Supporting Medicare Rx Bill

December 1, 2003
AARP's decision to support the Medicare reform bill may have been the deciding factor in pushing the measure through a Congress filled with misgivings not only about the cost and effectiveness of the bill but also about how it would play back home.

As they say inside the Beltway, AARP "provided cover" to lawmakers who may have feared their elderly constituents would vote them out of office if they voted for the bill.

"This gives Mr. or Ms. Congressperson an excuse -- they can say to their older voters, 'Well, gee, AARP said they supported it so I though I was voting for something that seniors would welcome,'" said one veteran of many Capitol Hill skirmishes.

The effect of AARP's dramatic endorsement was amplified by full-page newspaper advertisements and television ads directed at lawmakers. The organization said it spent $7 million on the last-minute campaign and was ready to spend more.

Meanwhile, outside AARP's Washington headquarters and at branch offices around the country, seniors staged 60s-style protests at which they tore up and, in some cases, burned their membership cards. Critics said AARP had put its insurance-business interests ahead of its members.

AARP denied that its insurance business would benefit from the bill. In fact, the Medicare supplemental market may shrink as the revised Medicare plan takes effect in 2006.

Instead, AARP officials cited two reasons for falling into line behind the GOP-sponsored bill:

• It's a start; and
• The boomers will like it.

"We were either going to get something now or else it wasn't going to happen for many, many years to come," said John Rother, AARP's policy director and chief lobbyist. Rother held out hope that the bill's provisions can be improved incrementally in years to come, whereas starting over wouldn't have been feasible anytime soon.

"We represent a constituency that doesn't have that much time to wait," Rother said.

Parkel

AARP President James Parkel, the organization's top-ranking volunteer, said the bill is at least a beginning.

"Every day, we receive letters and calls from our members recounting how the high cost of prescription drugs is hurting their financial and physical health. We believe that the legislation that has emerged after long negotiations will go a long way toward relieving these burdens for millions of older and disabled Americans and their families," Parkel said.

On the second point, AARP CEO William Novelli said that extensive research indicated that younger AARP members were more likely to support key aspects of the legislation. It's younger AARP members who are now, in many cases, paying their parents' drug bills, making them acutely aware of the scope of the problem.

Also, those nearing retirement are much more familiar with the world of health maintenance and preferred provider organizations and are more accustomed to weighing the benefits of competing health plans.

With one-third of AARP's 35 million members somewhere between 50 and 60, that's an important consideration. It sometimes escapes critics that AARP now finds itself in the position Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson did at an earlier time -- trying to please both the World War II generation and its children. The two are oil and water, differing sharply in their views of nearly everything.

By late last week, Novelli estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 AARP members had quit in anger -- hardly enough to throw the massive organization into crisis. It still represents more than one-tenth of the U.S. population, after all.

Thus, even if the measure proves tremendously unpopular with older seniors, those nearing retirement and, presumably, more active AARP participation may be much happier with it. And they are, after all, the ones who will have to live with it for 20 or 30 years.

NCOA

Joining AARP in its decision was the National Council on the Aging, which represents senior service agencies. Its president, James Firman, said the challenge now is enrollment of the millions of seniors who need help with prescription costs. “We need to make sure they get what’s promised them,” he said. The American Diabetes Association and Alzheimer's Association also threw their support behind the legislation.