Analyst Focuses on the Elderly at Irvine Health Care Forum

The ability of the American government to take care of its elderly will continue to be a major issue well into the next century, according to a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research who spoke at UC Irvine on Thursday.

Norman J. Ornstein, the resident scholar and an election analyst for CBS News, said that as consumer and business factions battle to gain control in the tumultuous managed-care environment, “the government’s role in the health care arena will shift from provider to arbitrator and protector of the American public.”

He said that health policy has not lost its position as a major issue on the nation’s political agenda, as many analysts predicted in the wake of President Clinton’s failed health care plan.

“After the Clinton health care plan went down in flames in ‘94, most analysts predicted that health policy would drop from sight for several years,” he said. “But it’s been right on the front burner every year since then.”

Ornstein said the biggest headache ahead for government is in the Medicaid arena, where people more than 100 years old are the fastest-growing age group and those older than 85 are the second-fastest-growing group.

“Just imagine this, your worst nightmare: Your elderly in-laws show up at the door one day. In one hand, they are holding suitcases and in the other hand, a box of Depends. And they are telling you that they are there to move into the back bedroom.”

More than 300 government and health care industry professionals gathered for the first day of the university’s two-day Health Care Forecast Conference, which continues today.