Seniors and Blacks…no need to invite President Bush to talk to either group…President a ‘no-show’ at the much-heralded conference which ended up pointing out the differences between the two Americas  

By Daniel Hines
Publisher
America’s Seniors at www.TodaysSeniorsNetwork.com

If America’s seniors ever needed proof once again of the disconnect between the Bush Administration and America’s elderly, it was provided once again when the President became the first chief executive in 50 years to skip the three-day White House Conference on Aging. 

With the snub, America’s seniors joined the NAACP as a large bloc of citizens that the Administration chooses to ignore. 

A White House spokesman explained that while President Bush supported the conference and had sent Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt to speak to the delegates on his behalf, he could not attend all the conferences that he's invited to. The president felt that it was a better use of his time to highlight what the administration has done for seniors.  

Perhaps it was because the Conference, meant to present President Bush’ hoped-for successes in Social Security privatization and Medicare Prescription Drug Cards, ended up taking place against the backdrop of the failure of the President’s Social Security Initiative, and the growing realization that Medicare Part D will only line the pockets of large drug companies, insurance companies and Part D plan administrators, while contributing to the growing budgetary crisis.  

But, in a typical Bush Administration of misdirection, seniors weren’t entirely forgotten.  The Washington Post notes that:  “While delegates were debating ways to strengthen Medicare in a meeting room of the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in the District, the president went instead to a retirement community in suburban Virginia for a geezer feel-good news opportunity in which he promoted Medicare's controversial prescription drug benefit.” 

This is a President who doesn’t take well to not only failure, but someone telling him ‘no,’ choosing instead to make carefully scripted appearances before audiences screened for their loyalty to him personally and to his agenda. 

Still, from all that we can gather from those seniors’ advocates that attended the meeting, they were energized by the Presidential snub. 

In what was a major rebuke of the President’s ship-wrecked Social Security privatization push, delegates voted overwhelmingly to keep Social Security as is , rejecting privatization as a major solution to the system's long-term solvency.

At the same time, they offered alternative strategies such as raising the cap on taxed wages and putting all workers, including government workers, in the system, a move that would provide the needed additional funding to ensure the continued success of the program.

The Delegates also showed their independence when they identified as a leading priority to increase the number of health professionals trained in geriatrics.  But at the same time, Republican-controlled House of Representatives health committee was ‘zeroing out’ of next year’s Federal budget, a program that funded a network of 50 geriatric education centers.

There was also opposition to the feeing among delegates that the meeting had too many speakers, a controlled agenda and that they were being talked to too much and listened to too little, says the Washington Post which continued:

“Aging, it seems, doesn't get much respect in the nation's capital. But it should. The longevity revolution is reshaping our lives. The baby boom is turning 60, the health care system is inadequate and traditional programs for older Americans need to change. Laws must be amended to encourage working and saving, and new initiatives must come in the public and private arenas to meet the challenges -- and opportunities -- of a healthier older population.”