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Aging, Politics, and Public Policy
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13864 |
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MODERN THOUGHT
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12 / 1988 |
5,388 Words |
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Robert H. Binstock
Robert H. Binstock is the author of some one-hundred articles
and seven books, most of which deal with politics and public
policy affecting older persons. A former president of the
Gerontological Society of America, he is currently the Henry
R. Luce Professor of Aging, Health, and Society at the School
of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. |
American public policy toward aging is approaching an important crossroads. Will public policies continue—as they have for several decades—to treat "the elderly" as a stereotyped group? If so, government expenditures on programs for the aging will grow at an enormous rate, but without alleviating the problems of those within the older population who are most seriously disadvantaged; at the same time, older persons may well be blamed for a host of problems in American society. Or will stereotypes weaken and public policies begin to focus on older Americans in all their diversity, providing effective help to those aging persons who need it most?
Most Americans have become aware that we are an aging society; 12 percent of our population—about 29 million people—is age 65 and over, and the number and percentage of older Americans will continue to grow for many years into the twenty-first century. Less well known but at least equally important is the fact that almost $300 billion, or 26 percent of our annual federal budget, is expended on benefits to the aged.
As long as a decade ago recognition of these facts began to engender alarm about the "graying of the budget" and America's "growing burden" of the elderly. Extrapolations based on existing expenditures for the elderly and on the continued aging of our population led to dramatic projections suggesting that the proportion of our federal budget expended on older persons will reach 40 percent early in the next century and 63 percent by the year 2025.
Today, governmental expenditures on the elderly, as well as the political activities of the aged, are being linked with a variety of ills in American life. Public policy on aging that has been constructed throughout more than half a century in the United States is being changed and challenged. And the status of older persons as citizens entitled to healthy care is being directly questioned.
Compassionate Ageism and the 'Old-Age Welfare State'
Policy issues concerning older Americans have been framed for a long time by an underlying ageism—the attribution of the same characteristics, status, and just deserts to a heterogeneous group that has been artificially homogenized, packaged, labeled, and marketed as "the aged."
From the 1930s until about ten years ago, several stereotypes concerning older persons were axiomatic of public rhetoric on the aged in
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