THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408130284
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Angry members of the American Association of Retired Persons kept the phone lines buzzing Friday while calling local representatives to complain about the organization's endorsement of health care reform legislation advocated by Senate and House majority leaders.
``I can't get my watermelon rinds put up, the phone is ringing so much,'' said Winnie Williams, community coordinator for AARP's Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Eastern Shore district, with about 60,000 members.
``People say they're going to turn their membership cards back because they're so upset.''
The endorsement, announced Wednesday, marked the first time the advocacy group has thrown the weight of its 33 million members behind any health care reform plans.
Reaction in Hampton Roads mirrors that expressed by AARP members across the country.
``They're all very emotionally upset, but they're all saying the same words,'' said John Warner, an AARP spokesman who has been fielding calls. ``They say, `I haven't been polled and you can't represent me.' I wonder if they're reading something.''
Even local chapter presidents expressed their disappointment with the endorsement.
``I'm very much against the national endorsement, and I don't think the national board should have gotten involved in it,'' said John Cutchin, Suffolk chapter president. ``I feel they should have consulted the members before they went out and endorsed something like that.''
Late last year the AARP Bulletin asked its readers, all of whom are association members, for their ``first reaction'' to the Clinton health care reform plan. Of the 25,000 readers who responded, 82 percent opposed the plan, and only 17 percent approved.
District Director Ken C. Gimbert of Virginia Beach tried to put the reaction into perspective, noting that the endorsed plans meet nearly all the AARP's requirements. ``All along the AARP has had as its four major emphases that it wanted to have quality care available to all, make sure there was cost control, that we included long-term care, particularly community and home-based, and that prescription drugs be included.
``The AARP support at least is a giant step forward towards having all Americans have access to health care.''
Williams, who had to call seven AARP members and relay news of the endorsement Thursday morning, isn't so sure.
When she called the seven members on her ``telephone tree,'' dutifully urging them to contact their congressional delegates to solicit support for the Senate and House bills, they said they wouldn't make any calls because they didn't agree with the endorsement.
``I feel like I'm caught between a rock and a hard place,'' she said. MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this story.
KEYWORDS: HEALTH CARE REFORM AARP ENDORSEMENT by CNB