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Countywide : White House Aide Hears From Elderly

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Health care, nutrition, housing and economic security emerged Thursday as key priorities for the elderly as a visiting White House representative urged Southern California senior citizens to make their concerns known to national leaders.

“None of these concerns are exclusive to one generation, they affect young and old,” Bob Blancato said at a forum in Costa Mesa. “We want to approach aging reform as an issue that everyone should be concerned about.”

Blancato, newly appointed executive director of the White House Conference on Aging, opened his keynote address to about 70 senior citizens at the Red Lion Inn by asking the crowd to voice its concerns, which he promised would be considered as part of the agenda at next year’s national conference on aging in Washington.

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Blancato, invited by the host California Assn. of Nutrition Directors for the Elderly, was appointed by President Clinton in February to head the newly formed office charged with gathering policy recommendations for the 1995 conference. The Costa Mesa forum was the only one in Southern California that he plans to attend before the conference.

“What we are saying in this conference and in other mini-conferences around the country is let us not be parochial,” he said. “We are coming to you, the state with the highest population of elderly citizens, and asking for recommendations.”

Brenda Ross, chairwoman of the Senior Citizen Council of Orange County, said that people must be made aware that health care is a lifelong endeavor and that they should practice healthy lifestyles throughout their lives to avoid burdening the system in later years.

“We can’t sit on our duff for 25 years or smoke and expect someone to take care of us later,” she said. “There must be lifelong learning and a sense of responsibility for ourselves.”

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