MANY AARP MEMBERS OPPOSE HEALTH PLANS

In a move that generated dismay among many rank-and-file members of the American Association of Retired Persons, the national organization's board of directors endorsed Democratic health-care reform bills introduced in Congress.

The endorsement came as major business groups sought to form a united front against Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's bill. But with 33 million members, the AARP is a formidable lobbying force in the Beltway, and the board's endorsement undoubtedly was welcomed by President Clinton and other Democrats pushing for a national health-care system.

The indignation of may AARP members is warranted. They weren't polled before a handful of directors endorsed Mitchell's and House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt's versions of health-care reform. Further reason to discount the AARP endorsement is apparent in the primary hurdles to passage of either the Gephardt or Mitchell bill.

Debate has focused on whether employers should be required to pay at least part of the cost of their workers' insurance. Debate ought to focus on who will pay for this onerous plan to turn one-seventh of our nation's economy over to federal bureaucrats. Young, healthy working men and women will pay for benefits that disproportionately will be procured by the aged and infirm.

Along comes the AARP to back the plan with employer mandates, paid for with increased taxes on working Americans.

AARP President Eugene Lehrmann says that without the Democratic health-care bills, "health-care reform will be dead for years to come." Why? Health care needs reform, not transmutation. Who says we can't revamp the system without turning it over to the federal government?

Lehrmann has good reasons to support the Democratic health-care bills, which would, among other things beneficial to the elderly, add prescription drug coverage to Medicare and establish a long-term care program for the disabled. But there are trade-offs, he insists. Sure there are. Under either Democratic health care bill, AARP members with six-figure incomes will pay higher Medicare premiums. Also, other AARP members will have to settle for home and community-based long-term care, rather than care in a hospital ward.

The other side of the trade-off is working people forced to foot a bigger share of the tab for elderly people who incur the greatest share of health-care costs. Lehrmann insists that the AARP board only wants to improve the health care system, "not only for ourselves, but for our children, our grandchildren and the generations to follow."

But 98 percent of America's elderly already have health insurance, albeit expensive insurance. The elderly may well be concerned about rising medical costs, but what will happen when the alternative is worse care, rationed care, and price controls. Unfortunately, the expensive care they receive to make them well today, might not be available tomorrow.

And what about your children, grandchildren and the generations to follow? By turning health care over to the federal government, they will be left with a bureaucracy unprecedented in size and scope, no freedom to pick a health plan that fits their wants and needs, fewer choices over what medical care they can get, and rationed health care. They also will be left with the bill for it all. It is no wonder then that many AARP members oppose the board's endorsement.