‘Virtual Inaction’ on Key Issues Charged : Report Faults Congress, Reagan on Consumer Aid

The National Consumers League on Friday termed 1985 a year of “virtual inaction” on consumer issues such as health care and financial services, saying that, under the Reagan Administration, “consumers have lost basic protections that they had assumed were here to stay.”

In a year-end “report card,” the group gave the Administration and the Senate overall grades of “D” for their responses to the issues, and the House received a “C.”

Group’s Top Priorities

Included in the league’s top priorities were health care, insurance, food and drug safety, financial services, toxic wastes, energy, working conditions and pay of workers, economic policy and telecommunications.

“Both the Administration and the Congress have had some very pressing issues to address,” the league’s executive director, Linda Golodner, told a news conference. “But they’ve been dragging their feet or done nothing at all.”

She added: “On the main issues of concern to consumers, 1985 was a year of virtual inaction.”

The league’s year-end review termed health care the single most important consumer issue of the decade, saying that “the crisis in health care delivery and its inflated costs threaten to undermine this country’s ability to provide access to affordable quality health care to all of its citizens.”

Plaudits for House

The group criticized the Administration for trying to cut funds for Medicare and Medicaid through the deficit-reduction measure passed by Congress, but the House won plaudits for “rescuing” Medicaid by exempting it from the law’s across-the-board cuts.

The House won the highest mark from the 86-year-old consumer group, an “A-minus,” for passing a Superfund bill that extends the nation’s effort to clean up toxic waste dumps. On the other hand, the Administration scored the two lowest grades, both “D-minuses,” for “failing to exercise initiative on trade policy” and for attempting to impose “a greater burden on the working people by taxing benefits and unemployment insurance.”

Deregulation Criticized

In addition, Golodner expressed increasing concern about the Administration’s approach to letting the marketplace regulate itself.

“The Administration’s support of deregulation has been so wholehearted that the Consumer Product Safety Commission now is headed by a man who believes that purely voluntary standards will assure our safety; the role of the Environmental Protection Administration has been seriously eroded, and the Federal Aviation Administration operates with too few inspectors and air traffic controllers,” she said.