It's children, not seniors, who are ailing (Where's the real Cynthia Tucker?)

If conventional wisdom is to be believed, America's elderly struggle to get by on limited incomes, sometimes forced to choose between buying groceries or essential prescription drugs. As the U.S. Senate debates competing proposals to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, you will hear lots of sob stories about the stereotypical grandmother reduced to eating cat food.

Don't believe it. That impoverished grandmother forced to eat Whiskas tuna because of her high prescription drug bills may exist somewhere --- but she is a very rare case. The simple truth is that the nation has done a good job of providing for its senior citizens, so much so that many of them have the money not only for their medications but also for those geezer bus tours to Atlantic City or Dollywood.

The vast majority of elderly citizens have manageable pharmaceutical bills. Sixty-eight percent of seniors spend less than $1,000 per year in out-of-pocket costs on prescriptions. Fifteen percent spend between $1,000 and $2,000 a year.

The other 17 percent have soaring out-of-pocket expenses topping $3,000 a year and may genuinely need help, if they are poor. But the massive drug benefit proposed by Democratic senators would cost $500 billion in the first six years and aid all seniors, wealthy and poor alike.

There is no doubt that the cost of prescription drugs has escalated sharply, squeezing the budgets of Americans of all ages. But the Senate's mawkish concern for the elderly has less to do with their finances and more to do with their political clout: Senior citizens are the nation's most reliable bloc of voters.

(Unhappily for me, they also have the spare time to write or phone not-yet-retired newspaper columnists. I will no doubt spend the next week fending off their criticisms. To my mother: Please stop reading here; it doesn't get any better.)

Because of their political activism, the elderly have received a substantial share of the nation's welfare spending. (Yes, Social Security is a welfare program. Retirees consume the equivalent of funds they and their employers paid in within the first few years. Medicare is a welfare program, too.) Measured in 1990 dollars, total federal spending on a social safety net for older Americans amounted to approximately $13,190 per elderly resident in 1995, according to Martha Ozawa, a social scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

By contrast, the nation has allowed many of its children to languish in poverty --- without the housing, educational opportunities or health care they need. In 1995, total federal spending on a children's safety net amounted to about $1,400 per child, according to Ozawa.

Here's why older citizens, including baby boomers like me, should worry about that: Younger workers support retirees. Social Security and Medicare are paid from taxes collected by people still working. If the nation doesn't properly take care of its children, they will not have the skills to shoulder the massive burden of paying for the next crop of retirees --- the huge baby boom cohort.

"America's future is being jeopardized by the country's inability to invest effectively in the education and financial well-being of its children. It is critical for policy-makers to keep in mind that children have lost substantial economic ground in relation to adults and elderly people since the late 1960s," Ozawa has said.

Of course, if children could vote or give huge donations to political campaigns, politicians would jump to accommodate them. Since they cannot, a course correction toward more spending on impoverished children will require great political courage and sacrifice.

What the nation needs is for a few geezers in Congress to stand and speak frankly to their own generation. They ought to say, "It's time for us to allow children to receive a larger portion of the nation's affluence."

That impoverished grandmother forced to eat Whiskas tuna because of her high prescription drug bills may exist somewhere ---

Well, we already have testimony from El Loco Poco Ricardo Gephardt that his mother awaits anxiously her prescription drug benefit.

Don't know if she can't afford both prescriptions AND dog food, but El Loco Poco has made it plain that his mother beats on him daily for her prescription drugs.

St Louisans, you must be proud of your representative who loves his mama so much that he's gonna pass a LAW so she can have both her dog food and her prescription drugs.

Do you know that many "geezers" don't do medicare for this reason, so that they get gouged by doctors who have them help pay for other, less able patients and "charity" illegals?

Thats funny. Medicare reimbursement is so low ( and by the way going lower by I believe 5% this next fiscal year) that many doctors are now refusing to take any NEW Medicare patients as the cost of seeing them is more then the payment.

My parents and I had that discussion a long time ago. They prefer to stay in their home until the end of their days, and I am determined to see to it that they get their wish.

Let me explain the quote you took. The "geezers" who do not "do" (accept, sign up for, use) medicare go to doctors who do not take medicare patients. They pay their own way, often at extra cost in order to cover for other patients.

Please tell me how your comment on the fact that doctors are refusing medicare patients because the fees do not cover the service applies? I know that this is true from physcians in my family. I don't understand how it bears on what I said.

Thank you.

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