Personal Hardship Shapes Ideas at Conference on Aging

Ask two of Ventura County’s delegates to the White House Conference on Aging what they hope to accomplish in Washington and they both talk about their mothers.

Helene Levy of Thousand Oaks recalls caring for her 92-year-old mother, and stresses the importance of long-term care facilities for the elderly.

Pati Longo of Ventura remembers her mother’s breast cancer, and speaks of her hope that the government’s health insurance plan for the elderly will soon pay for breast cancer screenings every year instead of every other year.

The health insurance plan, Medicare, has been the hot political topic this week at the conference. But each delegate also has a personal agenda that emerged from their experiences with aging.

Levy’s mother lived until 96. “It wasn’t easy for her. . . . a lot of loneliness and just caring for herself,” she said.

And Levy, 72, a great-grandmother who spends an hour a day on an exercise bike and treadmill, is realistic about the prospects for her own future and that of her husband.

“Whoever outlives the other one is going to end up in a long-term care facility,” she said.

For now, though, she and her husband live active lives, taking care of two Appaloosa horses and three big dogs as well as cruising on their powerboat out of Ventura Harbor.

“You see a lot of active seniors out here,” Levy said. “They’re not all using a cane or staying home and feeling sorry for themselves.”

Longo, 67, is also a busy woman, serving on the California Commission on Aging and as a spokeswoman for the American Assn. of Retired Persons.

While this week was Levy’s first visit to Washington, Longo, a breast-cancer survivor herself, had traveled there several times before to meet with Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss women’s health issues.

Longo and Levy, both on the advisory board of the Ventura County Area Agency on Aging, were appointed to the conference by Gov. Pete Wilson.

A third delegate from Ventura County, Simi Valley accountant Jean T. Dewey, 72, had also been to Washington before, for George Bush’s inauguration and for a meeting of the Senatorial Inner Circle. A Republican appointed to the conference by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), she hoped the White House conference would promote delegating policy decisions to state and local governments.

“If it’s being mandated from Washington, it’s no good,” Dewey said.

The conference unfolded this week against the backdrop of the Medicare trust fund’s potential collapse. But for the delegates the consequences do not seem so dire.

They shake their heads at the thought that the multibillion-dollar pool of money will pay out more than it takes in by 2002, as both Democrats and Republicans predict.

“It’s never going to go bankrupt,” Levy said Wednesday at a congressional reception for the California delegates to the conference.

Levy said she believes Congress will reform the system--the main source of health care for most of the country’s seniors--before it goes under.

“It’s all just scare tactics,” said Dewey of Simi Valley.

The White House hosts the Conference on Aging to discuss issues that affect senior citizens such as transportation, elder abuse and housing, and to advise the President on how to address them.

Delegates were appointed by local politicians and spent months reading thick briefing books in preparation for the conference.

The Ventura County representatives join more than 2,000 senior citizens nationwide for the conference, which ends today.

Stoll reported from Thousand Oaks. Roberson reported from Washington for States News Service.