The Changing Face of Aging Politics

The future of aging politics and age-based public policy are in considerable turmoil. Traditional age-based health and social service policies, such as those long associated with Medicare and the Older Americans Act, have increasingly moved in the direction of functional means-testing, through the use of activity-of-daily-living scales and similar mechanisms. Renewed pressure in the income area is also pointing in that direction, whether through benefit taxation (President Clinton) or means-testing of benefits (Concord Coalition). Yet, how this reining in of old age benefits plays out against the real or presumed power of older voters (cf. AARP and Gingrich proposal) remains an intriguing question. As they say, "stay tuned."