Wilson Failed Senior Citizens, McCarthy Asserts

Democratic Senate candidate Leo T. McCarthy chipped away Tuesday at the record of his Republican rival, charging that Sen. Pete Wilson has “missed opportunities” to help senior citizens.

Courting the state’s elderly voters at two campaign stops in the San Francisco Bay Area, Lt. Gov. McCarthy criticized Wilson for voting against a bill last year designed to improve nursing home care.

He also charged that the only bill the senator has sponsored on behalf of senior citizens was a “legislative placebo” that did nothing to help the elderly but gave Wilson material for a campaign television commercial.

“Long-term (nursing home) care will always be a top priority for me,” McCarthy told about 50 senior citizens gathered in Burlingame for a meeting of the American Assn. of Retired Persons. “To my opponent, it is little more than an election-year issue.”

Wilson lashed back later in the day, charging that McCarthy was “dishonest” and was misconstruing his record by taking his votes out of context.

“That is pathetic,” Wilson said in a telephone interview. “The guy is really reduced to absurd false statement. It really reveals that it’s time for him to leave the public arena.”

As Election Day draws near, McCarthy is attempting to remind older voters of his longtime advocacy of nursing home reform, increased government aid to the elderly and day centers for senior citizens who need only part-time assistance.

In his speech, McCarthy blasted Wilson for voting against “critical legislation” that requires all nursing homes that receive Medi-Care or Medi-Cal payments to have a nurse on duty 24 hours a day. The measure also requires the rest homes to provide training for nurses aides.

Wilson countered that the nursing home measure had been amended into a larger budget reconciliation act and that he voted against it because it would have raised taxes by $23 billion. The nursing home proposal never came up for a separate roll call vote, he said.

McCarthy, in one of his harshest charges of the day, contended that Wilson has “passed into law” only one bill during the last session of Congress.

“I wish I could tell you it was a bill addressing the problems of long-term care, or education, or transportation, or the federal deficit,” McCarthy said. “But I can’t. The only bill passed into law by Pete Wilson in the last two years is National Asparagus Month. That’s what I call a missed opportunity.”

Wilson, however, said he has sponsored a number of bills that have become law, including a measure that called for reciprocity in U.S. trade policy. He said he also has sponsored a wide range of measures on drugs, health care and consumer issues that have been incorporated into other legislation, a common practice in Congress.

“What he is doing is being deliberately unclear,” Wilson said. “Nobody’s name is attached to a piece of legislation except in the rarest of circumstances.”

Earlier in the day, the 58-year-old McCarthy visited the Cypress Senior Center in San Jose where he briefly played the piano with the center’s country and western band and then danced with several elderly women.

He abandoned his prepared speech and chatted informally with two dozen seniors about his support for government health insurance that would pay the cost of nursing home care.

But in a statement distributed to reporters, McCarthy attacked a Wilson proposal that would have allowed federal retirees to trade their life insurance for private long-term care insurance.

McCarthy called the bill “a legislative placebo--an insignificant bill” that “does not improve the quality of nursing homes.” He charged that “Pete Wilson is a senator in search of a television commercial and that bill gave him what he needed.”

Although the bill failed in the Senate, Wilson said it was an innovative approach that gained considerable support among Democrats. Ultimately, the plan could provide nursing home insurance for tens of millions of Americans, Wilson contended.