Alan Simpson always has something colorful to say, especially where his longtime nemesis, AARP, is concerned. The retired Wyoming senator, who has been center stage in the national deficit reduction debate, recently called the huge seniors' lobby a bunch of "greedy geezers" who don't care about future generations of Americans.
Simpson was referring to an AARP television ad that ran during the final weeks of deliberation by the congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The ad was a pointed reminder to legislators that seniors vote, and a warning that they shouldn't agree to cuts in Social Security or Medicare. Simpson, who co-chaired President Obama's commission on debt reduction, testified before the Super Committee; he called the ad "disgusting" and urged young people to remember AARP in 2036, when their benefits could be slashed 20 percent or more.
It's hardly the first time AARP has taken fire or found itself in the middle of controversy on policy and legislative matters related to entitlements, and it won't be the last, especially as debate about federal spending intensifies heading into the 2012 elections.
I spoke recently about AARP with Fred Lynch, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and the author of a provocative new book, One Nation Under AARP: The Fight Over Medicare, Social Security, and America's Future (University of California Press, 2011). Lynch examines the pivotal role AARP plays in setting the national agenda for Social Security and Medicare.
Lynch's book offers a fascinating profile of a leviathan organization struggling to balance the competing agendas of its for-profit and advocacy divisions. Lynch also deals thoughtfully with AARP's sometimes-conflicting strategies to serve today's seniors and the aging baby boom generation.
Here's a brief exchange from our conversation:
Q: Are we running the risk of an inter-generational war in this country, pitting old against young over entitlements, and where does AARP fit in the picture?
A: The elites living on the eastern seaboard -- of which AARP is a part -- don't want that. AARP's approach is, 'We can manage this' by doing some social engineering and tinkering with these programs. But the question is, how? AARP has the possibility of awakening the sleeping giant of aging Americans as a political power. They really don't want to do that, because they have a broader mission. But everyone else is looking to them to do just that -- defend Social Security and Medicare to the max.
AARP does see itself as the custodian of Social Security and Medicare, and I think they see the need for long-range reform. There's just a question of how to go about it.
Q: Your book recounts the blow-back AARP experienced when the organization backed the Obama Administration's health reform law. What lessons did AARP learn there?
A: When AARP backed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they lost at least 400,000 members who were afraid 'Obamacare' would take resources away from Medicare. Many people over 50 see the ACA as redistributing resources from Medicare to younger people, and especially immigrants. AARP is scared stiff of the immigration issue; they never talk about it.
The hostility toward the ACA is driven by the $500 billion in reductions to proposed growth in provider reimbursements, and the so-called "death panels." It's been very frustrating for AARP, because the ACA helps an important constituency they are wooing -- boomers age 50 to 64. They will be able to get better health insurance through the public exchanges (which launch in 2014), but others translate (this plan) as taking money away from seniors and using it to subsidize coverage for other demographic groups.
Q: You also see developments in California over the last few decades as a portrait in miniature of the coming national debate over resources, don't you?
A: It might be that I focus on this so much because I live in California, but the state has been a sort of sociological San Andreas fault line on these issues, and now they are going national. In California, we have a triple split between age, race and class. You have older whites who are relatively well off; many of them have defined-benefit pensions, they own homes and have saved. Boomers are still our best college-educated generation. They're interested in entitlements and what they can do to support the elderly.
On the other side of this is a population that increasingly is multi-ethnic, poorer and younger. These are families that want better schools and roads, and other things that help build a better future. The divide has been evident here since Proposition 13 in 1978; California's electorate is mainly while and older, but the overall population is much younger and broadly diverse.
Q: Do you see a seniors' political constituency coalescing around entitlements in the years ahead?
A: Boomers do have a common culture around TV and rock 'n roll, but we're divided politically between left and right. Now we've had the real estate and stock market crashes, and we're looking at the prospect of cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The most important demographic segment of the Tea Party movement is baby boomers, and they care about their Social Security and Medicare benefits. A day of reckoning is coming -- they will have to choose.
Related stories: 11 Retirement Benefit Changes Coming in 2012 and What's Next for Social Security, Medicare
© 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
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