Aging Conference Adapts to Era of Limits : Elderly: Social Security, Medicare are strongly defended. But ‘pragmatic’ delegates to White House gathering stop short of advocating new benefits.

In a fiscally cautious mood, more than 2,000 delegates to the White House Conference on Aging called Friday for a strong defense of Social Security and Medicare but avoided traditional demands for new government benefits for the elderly.

Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.), the conference chairman, called the meeting’s tone “pragmatic” and said that its legacy will be strengthened political support for the “sanctity” of the social contract between American workers and the elderly.

This year’s White House conference, the first since 1981, ended with a markedly different tone from previous gatherings, which traditionally have prepared the ground for liberal enterprises such as Medicare and the Older Americans Act, which funds senior centers and meal programs.

“This was a pretty pragmatic group of delegates,” Pryor said. “They did not support any new programs. They did not vote to create any new bureaucracies.”

In the current political climate, the delegates--many of whom are liberal in their politics and activist in their approach to government--were highly restrained. Their actions reflected concern over the federal budget deficit, a deepening skepticism of government and the political reality of a Republican Congress determined to restrain the growth of spending.

The gathering passed 50 resolutions on subjects ranging from housing to legal aid but the emphasis was on preserving the major social programs now benefiting the elderly.

Elected officials should “not use Social Security to reduce the budget deficit or balance the budget” and the program should be strengthened and preserved “without means testing, with universal coverage and with continued full protection against inflation,” the delegates said in the most popular resolution, which drew support from 1,595 of the 2,002 delegates who cast ballots Friday.

Among the delegates, “there was a militant determination that there can’t be any tampering with Medicare and Social Security,” said author Betty Friedan, one of the pioneers of the modern feminist movement and now an advocate on issues involving the elderly. She was a delegate from New York.

There were two separate resolutions approved Friday on Medicare, the first originally developed in mini-conferences around the country and refined in three days of discussion here. It declared that the 36 million Medicare beneficiaries should be protected “with respect to health care affordability and access, giving special consideration to the burdens imposed by co-payments, deductibles and premiums.”

A second resolution, more partisan in tone and prepared by liberal and labor delegates, echoed the words the Clinton Administration has been using in its fight with congressional Republicans over Medicare. It said that the problems of Medicare should be considered in the context of broader health care reform backed by Clinton and declared that Medicare and Medicaid savings should not be used to pay for “tax cuts for well-off citizens.”

While the White House has accused Republicans of planning to trim future Medicare spending to help balance the budget, the GOP has said that Clinton has abdicated his responsibility to offer a solvency rescue plan for Medicare. The hospital trust fund is projected to fall into bankruptcy in the year 2002. The GOP also has said that it would not cut Medicare but only slow the rate of growth from the current level of 10% a year to a level of 7%.

The only significant new funding supported by the delegates was a call to expand research spending on Alzheimer’s disease, now $311 million a year, by an additional $50 million. The resolution said that outlays should be boosted to $500 million a year by the turn of the century to seek a cure or effective treatment for the disease of mental deterioration eventually leading to death.

“We’re at a threshold point in Alzheimer research where we could hold off the onset of the disease for five years and save the country $50 billion,” said Jerry Braun, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Assn. in Los Angeles.

California’s delegation also won passage of a resolution calling for “creative” financing to produce affordable senior housing. And it asked for collaboration of government and the private sector in promoting adult day-care facilities and senior centers that help the elderly continue living at home.

Members of the state delegation vowed to keep their group together to pursue aging issues.

William Miller of Long Beach said that he plans to present the resolutions to members of Congress. “This is just the beginning,” he said.

The biggest senior advocacy group, the American Assn. of Retired Persons, praised the conference for focusing on Medicare. The program “is in critical condition,” said Horace Deets, executive director of the 32-million-member AARP. “It is essential that those interested in reviving Medicare put aside partisanship,” he said.

But a more skeptical view came from the United Seniors Assn., a 400,000-member conservative group. “I see a lot of hot air (at the conference) while I’m looking for specifics,” said Mike Korby, the organization’s legislative director. “We agree Social Security and Medicare have to be protected--the question is how.”