STATEMENT OF EARL BOURDEN, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF SENIOR CITIZENS AND THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ELDERLY Mr. BOURDEN. Thank you. I want at the outset to say for three reasons I am very happy and proud to be here. First of all, I am very happy to be here because this is a subcommittee of the House Select Committee on Aging. And I am very happy that the chairman of your parent committee is Claude Pepper, that eloquent and courageous spokesman for senior citizens in this country. The second reason I am proud to be here is that I am testifying today on behalf of the National Council of Senior Citizens and the National Association for the Elderly. And the third reason I am proud is that this hearing is being held in Woodstock, a town where 109 years ago my father was born. But I am particularly happy to be here, not just to speak for the National Council of Senior Citizens or for the New Hampshire Association for the Elderly, but to speak as articulately as I can for those senior citizens who are members of the New Hampshire Association for the Elderly, those senior citizens who participated as delegates or observers to the White House Conference on the Aging, and for those thousands of seniors in America who did attend that White House Conference on the Aging urging that you, the Congressmen of this country, not forget the message that you got from the National White House Conference on the Aging, that the social security system is a vital, living, vibrant part of the life of senior citizens who have retired. It is a major source of income for them, and for many of them the only source of income. And it must not be whittled away. I am here to bring that message from the White House Conference on the Aging, that many of those committees are saying that the social security ought not to be whittled way, almost all of them. And that it ought to be improved if it can. And the level of benefits that are currently being received should be maintained, not only for people currently getting social security but for those in the future who may be its recipients. It is a very dangerous kind of game to play that we are playing in America today, in these talks about budget cuts on essential services that mean security and well-being for human beings-the sort of thing that is going to be less and less money to provide essential services. So, you are going to have the old fighting with the young, the blacks fighting with the whites, the urban areas fighting with the rural areas, to the disadvantage of us all. So I want to carry the message of the White House Conference on Aging, the New Hampshire delegation to the conference, the National Council of Senior Citizens, and the New Hampshire Association for the Elderly, to urge that the social security system be maintained, that it be strengthened, that if anything its benefits be improved-even if you have to use money from the general revenue to do so. The second thing I want to say that I think is of major importance that came out of the conference is a whole new look at the Nation's responsibility to the health and the well-being of senior citizens and to all other American citizens. If any message came out of the White House Conference on the Aging, if any message at all comes out of the New Hampshire delegation report to the Governor and our congressional delegation about their role in the conference, and their recommendations, that we are asking that a long look be taken at the whole question of long-term health care, that we keep people as long as possible living in their own homes, that we do so in terms of cost containment by the use, if possible, of health maintenance plans, and that we work as fast as we can toward the development of a national comprehensive health plan for all Americans. I am aware of the great magnitude of the problems which this committee faces and the necessity for hearing a lot of testimony. I want to tell you now that I know the value of private pension plans. I have a pension plan aside from my social security that was negotiated for me by the United Steelworkers of America. I think we all ought to recognize when we talk about private pension plans the role that unions played in winning those insurance plans for us. I notice that at your hearing there was no representative representing any union concept on what should happen to private pension plans. But I will tell you this. I have not read the Rangel bill but when I get home I'm going to. If it can stir up that kind of controversy, I want to read the bill. Because I tell you that I think the Congress of the United States does have a responsibility in private pension plans to make certain those people when they retire, that are supposed to get private pension plans, get it; that it is not wasted and lost away somewhere else. And the Congress has a responsibility to do that. I don't want to run away with 5 minutes. I want to say that because I am limited to 5 minutes, I have prepared for you, through the office of the National Council of Senior Citizens, some additional testimony which I will submit to you on employment of senior citizens, involving mainly the funding at a proper level of title V of the Older Americans Act. I have some additional information prepared by the National Council of Senior Citizens which I will submit to you prepared by the National Council on the whole question of social security and why you cannot balance the budget by cutting social security, why you must not balance the budget on the backs of the old. And we will submit that evidence to you. And we will submit additional evidence which Congressman Gregg already I think has received, a report of the New Hampshire delegation to the White House Conference on the Aging. We wish to make that available for all of your committee and for anybody else who wishes to see it. But in closing I want to say again that the responsibility which this Nation has to the old, the responsibility which this Nation inherited in the 1930's by the adoption of one of the most significant pieces of social legislation in the history of this Nation, a commitment by the Nation that there no longer would be tolerated in our life that situation where old people, when they retire, when they were too old to work and too young to die, would never again have to look forward to going over the hill to the poorhouse. And we made that commitment, this Nation did, to its senior citizens in the 1930's. And the senior citizens must not permit you people in the Congress of the United States or in the Senate of the United States or in the top office, in the Oval Office of the Government of the United States, to renege on that commitment that you have to senior citizens, or to renege on that commitment that all of you must make to the maintenance and the saving and the building of a decent American society. Thank you very much. [The material submitted by Mr. Bourden follows:] THE NEW HAMPSHIRE WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON AGING The New Hampshire Delegation to the White House Conference on Aging presents this report to the Governor of New Hampshire, the members of the New Hampshire Congressional Delegation and the State Council on Aging. Our findings and recommendations are based on the testimony presented at Community Forums by Senior Citizens, the State Conference on Aging of May, 1981, and the priorities developed during the White House Conference on Aging in Washington. This report is submitted in order to re-affirm the needs of our elderly, lest in a time of shrinking resources, they be excluded from priority consideration. By this report, the Delegation also wishes to acknowledge the immense contribution made by citizen-volunteers while serving on the fourteen State Conference Committees. ECONOMIC SECURITY In the course of the past two years, over 1,000 older persons participated in Community Forums to express their concerns. The most consistent issue, expressed throughout the State, was the need for a secure and stable retirement income. Because we are concerned with the estimated 34,750 older citizens the majority of whom are women - living below poverty level in the State of New Hampshire and conscious of the financial anxieties among all Senior Citizens, we urge the President and members of Congress to take the following steps: 1. 2. 3. It is vital that the stability and security As a general principle, the current levels The Social Security system should be ex- 4. Social Security should not be allowed to 5. Since Social Security is the foundation HEALTH CARE The second most important concern expressed by the elderly is the cost and delivery of health care. The Delegation concurs with the Governor's Task Force on Health Care Costs in a number of major areas: 1. 2. 3. 4. .5. 6. Independent living in one's home should To emphasize this priority, medicare and Health Maintenance Organizations should This Delegation calls for the development Pending development of this health policy, This expanded medicare and medicaid pro- |