CAN WE HOPE TO RESTRAIN OUR ELDERLY'S HEALTH CARE COSTS?

Perhaps just perhaps I possess the minimal credentials to say this. Then again, perhaps not. Well, here goes.

On Sunday, March 31, some 48 hours before the polls opened in Cape Girardeau County, I published a column urging passage of the senior citizens property tax levy. At five cents per $100 assessed valuation, that small tax seemed a small price to pay for a locally administered program that would be efficiently run and close to the people it served, and which held out the promise of allowing our elderly neighbors to remain in their homes and avoid or postpone costly nursing home care.

The voters narrowly approved the tax, 52-48. I'm not so bold as to suggest cause and effect here. Rather, I merely want to establish some credentials as one who cares about and wants to ameliorate the plight of the elderly. What follows is likely to offend some of them.

The speaker at my service club's weekly meeting Wednesday was a regional representative for the American Association of Retired People (AARP). This is of course one of the largest, wealthiest and most potent lobby organizations in America. The speaker claimed that AARP's Modern Maturity is the most widely circulated magazine in America. (The magazine is sent to the AARP list as an incident of membership, and whether it outpulls Readers Digest's 17 million circulation I don't know, but suffice it to say that we're talking about a well organized outfit with literally millions of members).

Anyway, our speaker was a retired ballplayer who spent some years in the old Boston Braves organization. As he began his remarks with misty-eyed reminiscences of old friends Warren Spahn, Del Crandall, Joe Adcock and others, a kindly aura of nostalgia attached to him. Then he got to AARP.

The speaker's purpose seemed to be a recitation of the benefits of membership. They are most impressive, indeed. (We are given to understand that every humanoid in America starts to receive AARP mail about six months before his 50th birthday). Interspersed with with the insurance, the impressive travel discounts and such was lots of attention to the newsletters AARP sends out, in addition to their magazine, and repeated plugs for getting involved with local AARP chapters.

The membership listened respectfully to about 20 minutes of this, and then the speaker asked for questions. Yours truly asked the second and final question. My query was about as well received as a grease-laden dirt clod floating in the punch bowl:

"It's my understanding," I ventured bravely, "that the Bush administration has made a modest proposal aimed at getting health care costs under control. They've proposed that seniors with annual incomes of $125,000 and above should pay a higher percentage of the cost of their own Medicare coverage.

"But," I continued, addressing the AARP representative, "it's also my understanding that the AARP opposes this reform proposal. Is that true?"

The speaker responded that it was his understanding that such was the case; that he was not certain but thought I had correctly stated the AARP position; and that he certainly was not prepared to respond to questions focusing on the complexity of legislation in the dark nooks and crannies of federal health care policy.

So: stick to the newsletters and the magazine, the travel discounts and the insurance, the local chapters and the myriad other benefits of membership. But for God's sake don't address the fastest growing part of the federal budget. Don't address the AARP's grimly determined opposition to a pitifully modest attempt at gaining control of those exploding costs, the very costs that threaten to drive a wedge between generations and literally bankrupt the country.

My purpose here is not to be hard on our speaker, who after all is a nice man (he knows Warren Spahn!). I understand that an organization such as AARP has many functionaries, some of whom are sent out to extoll membership benefits, and nothing more. Such employees need not concern themselves with the arcana of federal health care legislation, and cost control.

But we're still left to wonder. As I write this on deadline, I recall that De Tocqueville or one of those Dead White European 18th Century Males writing about American democracy had a penetrating observation. He observed that democracy's dangerous flaw was that date when the people discovered that they could vote themselves benefits from the public treasury.

And so, we get to the heart of the matter. If it isn't possible to enact a modest reform such as asking the affluent elderly to pay slightly more for their health care, then what chance do we have, ever, to gain control over the gargantuan federal budget deficit?

You might ask your friendly local CongressPerson, from this or any other district. Just don't mention AARP. He or she is, with good reason, terrified of their clout.