Countywide : Clinton Plan Tops AARP Conference

Everything from President Clinton’s health-care plan to driving after the age of 55 were among the topics discussed by participants at the Southern California state conference of the American Assn. of Retired Persons in Buena Park on Friday.

About 400 members from across Southern California gathered at the Buena Park Hotel to collect information and network on a variety of topics important to seniors. But the top concern of most was the Clinton health plan.

The AARP fought to have the interests of its 33 million members reflected in the Clinton plan, said Josephine Barbano, chair of AARP’s National Legislative Council, which lobbies on economic, health, housing and consumer issues.

While the organization agrees with the universal coverage aspects of Clinton’s health-care proposal, it is concerned about the increase in premiums for prescription drugs and long-term care services called for under the plan, she said.

“Medicare is going to suffer drastically,” she said, referring to the proposed $124-billion cut in the federal health insurance program for people 65 years and older. Under the plan, recipients would be charged between $8 and $12 per month for prescription drugs and $3 per month for long-term care services, which will hurt the elderly poor on fixed incomes, she said.

In addition, the Clinton plan does not include nursing home care. According to the AARP, Medicaid--the state and federal assistance program for the poor--will cover nursing home care, but only after a person has depleted nearly all of his or her savings and assets.

The average stay in a nursing home is more than $30,000 a year.

“We want health care from birth to death,” Barbano said. “We believe it should be a social program like Social Security.”

In line with the conference theme, “Generations Growing Together,” Barbano stressed that the AARP was not fighting on the health-care battle for seniors alone. “We’re fighting the battle for this generation and other generations.”

One conference session focused on raising awareness among seniors who are increasingly being targeted for financial scams and other types of fraud.

Methods can include home-care insurance scams, fake medical aid salesmen, rent scams, home repair fraud, and false bank examiners who coerce the victim to withdraw a large sum of money, said Stephen Schrieber-Smith, a senior social worker with Orange County’s adult protective services.

“When you have a person with diminished capacities--physical or mental--that’s when people prey on the elderly,” he said. “They’re even more vulnerable.”