Seventy-six million babies born in the U.S. between 1946 and 1960, also known as the baby boomers, represented the largest and most significant demographic in American history to that point. When boomers began to arrive on the scene, America was in the midst of its shift away from war time footing to a consumer driven economy, culture, and government. By their sheer numbers baby boomers dominated that shift.
America turned its resources toward satisfying the needs of all those kids. Clothing, food, education, entertainment, almost everything found its largest market in the baby boomer set, and nearly everything produced, especially during the early years of the boom, was produced with boomers in mind.
Nowadays it would appear that there are some who think the boomers have gotten more than their fair share of just about everything. Or perhaps they believe boomers are no longer the powerful block they once were.
In the first showdown over the Senate health care bill, Democrats on Thursday successfully defended more than $400 billion in Medicare cuts, turning back a potentially lethal stab at the measure.
On a 58-42 vote, the Senate defeated an effort by Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to send the bill back to a committee where lawmakers would have had to drop the cuts in Medicare payments and instead find another way to pay for the bill, which overhauls the nation's health insurance system and guarantees coverage for tens of millions of people who lack insurance.
The amendment went down on a near party line vote with all Democrats except Jim Webb of Virginia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska in favor of the Medicare cuts, and all Republicans opposed.
It should come as no surprise that AARP is in favor of the cuts.
It's worth noting that AARP has a stake in the health care debate as a provider of Medigap insurance. Medigap and Medicare Advantage are supplemental policies for shortfalls in Medicare coverage. AARP sells Medigap. As a way of reducing the cost of the health care reform, Democrats had planned to cut Medicare Advantage subsidies, which would reduce competition against AARP's Medigap.
Legislative advantage over its competition, along with $18 million in federal stimulus money for a job training program, has kept AARP on the Obama team with respect to health care reform, and singing the liberal tune:
Democrats argued that the cuts - totaling $464 billion over 10 years - would not affect the basic services guaranteed by Medicare, and instead would squeeze insurance companies and hospitals that are overcharging for the level of service they are providing.
Republicans disagree.
Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican and a doctor, said physicians will be slower to respond.
"I know what goes on inside a hospital. When you cut $130 billion out of the hospitals, the time you're going to wait between the time you push your call button is going to get extended," he said. "The complications from that are going to result in decreased quality of care and shortened life expectancies."
Perhaps Democrats are counting on the onset of Alzheimer's or dementia, anticipating that by the time November 2010 elections roll around boomers will have forgotten their votes to cut Medicare. Or maybe they've calculated that boomers are no longer the force they once were, or that enough of them will have passed on.
We can expect Tea Partiers to once again ask, how is this going to work? How do we cut spending and continue to provide care? And when answers are not forthcoming, it's not hard to figure out how seniors are going to vote. It looks like 2010 is the year we find out if boomers still have it
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