Two years after the Alliance for Retired Americans was launched, the nationwide network of seniors has proved a powerful new force through its successful strategy to mobilize affordable prescription drugs.

By James Parks

	Strength in numbers: Seniors can win if enough of them work to hold Congress accountable, says Jack Miller (left), a retired UFCW member.

Standing in the pouring rain on the grounds of the nation’s capitol in Washington, D.C., Sept. 4, Luisa Kaufman-Phelan and nearly 1,000 seniors—all members of the Alliance for Retired Americans—rallied for a strong, affordable prescription drug benefit under Medicare. After hearing from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, they headed to Capitol Hill for meetings with members of Congress to deliver the message that the White House–backed Medicare prescription drug bills passed by the House and Senate must be changed drastically or allowed to die.

Kaufman-Phelan, 65, says the fight for affordable prescription drug legislation ultimately will affect every American. “We’re all getting older. We’re all going to need prescription drugs some day,” says Kaufman-Phelan, a retired AFT member and former New York City teacher who now lives in Sun City, Ariz. “These bills are rotten, and they need to be changed.”

Fueled by Congress’s passage this spring of badly crafted prescription drug bills that move toward the privatization of Medicare, more than 1,200 seniors traveled to Washington, D.C., for the second annual Alliance for Retired Americans national legislative conference Sept. 3–5. The conference, which included the Capitol Hill rally and lobby day, built on the dozens of rallies and town hall meetings seniors carried out in their lawmakers’ home districts throughout the summer, underscoring the Alliance member’s growing political activism.

“The only way you can get Congress to listen is to put pressure on them in an organized way,” says Jack Miller, 69, a retired member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 in Philadelphia. “One person can’t do much, but an organized group can get things done. Numbers speak.”

Two years after it was formed, the Alliance for Retired Americans—which now includes 3 million members—is a growing political force. The potential power of seniors is illustrated in the Alliance’s recent strategy to mobilize activists to create a meaningful Medicare prescription drug plan. Through effective communication, mobilization and home-district lobbying, seniors this summer worked to derail the two bad bills being reconciled by a House and Senate conference committee and to force a real debate in Congress on the best way to provide a universal, affordable drug plan.

In July, the House and the Senate passed prescription drug bills that offer seniors and people with disabilities no meaningful benefit. Seniors say the bills would move toward privatizing Medicare and create a new means test that would undermine the program’s universal nature. Seniors say a means test would erode public support for Medicare by removing some beneficiaries from the rolls. Activists also want legislators to end two dangerous elements in the proposals: out-of-pocket calculations that would prompt employers to cut already-fragile retiree drug coverage and individual health savings accounts that would benefit mainly the wealthy.

Both bills passed by Congress have huge gaps in coverage, lack guarantees to reduce premium costs, fail to bring down the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs and threaten employer-provided prescription drug benefits for retired workers. In addition, the House bill includes a $174 billion tax shelter that will help mostly high-income individuals and undermine coverage for active workers.

	Bills hurt seniors: The White House-backed prescription drug bills siphon money from seniors for the insurance companies, says IAM President Tom Buffenbarger.

“The first rule in medicine is ‘Do no harm.’ These bills do the exact opposite,” says Machinists President Thomas Buffenbarger. “They siphon cash from our seniors to fill the coffers of insurance companies.”

The goal of obtaining an affordable prescription drug benefit under Medicare is a high priority for America’s seniors. According to an August 2002 nationwide survey conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Alliance, 44 percent of seniors—and 60 percent of seniors in households with incomes less than $20,000—say action on a Medicare prescription drug benefit is one of the two most important issues in determining which candidates to support.

And seniors are determined to hold candidates accountable. “We have to make sure Medicare is the issue in 2004,” says Tony Fransetta, president of the 125,000-member Florida Alliance. “If [President George W.] Bush and any other candidates want to win, they have to support a good bill and be held accountable.”

Building a base

In March, the Alliance launched an aggressive, multifaceted national campaign to pass a meaningful prescription drug benefit. Key components of the campaign involve grassroots organization of seniors, membership education, rapid communications and mass mobilization.

Building on two years of organizing during which Alliance staff met with union members and community groups to explain the organization’s goals and train activists in building strong local chapters, the Alliance chartered 11 state chapters, with six or seven more on the way, says Alliance President George Kourpias.

The Alliance increased its strength through its outreach to new leadership among community-based senior groups. “It is important to get folks out in the communities,” Kourpias says. “Members of Congress listen to the people back home far more than they listen to us here in Washington. That’s where the Alliance is powerful—our members vote and they ask their Congress person directly what he or she is going to do.”

Reaching out to seniors

Effective techniques to educate and communicate with grassroots activists are important elements of the campaign, says Ed Coyle, Alliance executive director.

The Alliance sends weekly e-mail alerts to members and activists on critical issues for seniors and publishes in-depth quarterly reports and a quarterly magazine, Agewise. The fall edition of the magazine heavily covers the prescription drug issue.

	“Seniors are a force to be reckoned with. We are angry, and we're informed.” —Ida Ward, AFSCME retiree

This continuous flow of information is vital to educating and mobilizing seniors, says Ida Ward, an AFSCME retiree in Baltimore, Md. “We are union people, and we have experience as organizers and in digesting issues. If you tell us the score, we can run with it. Seniors are a force to be reckoned with, and we are angry, and we’re informed.”

The Alliance posts Medicare legislative proposals on its website and quickly updates members on the status of legislation with weekly e-mail alerts. The e-mail activist list has grown as seniors have sought to be informed by signing up at state, local and national meetings as well as online.

The power of senior e-mail activism was displayed June 17, the day House committees began marking up H.R. 1, its version of the Medicare prescription drug bill. The Alliance sent more than 26,000 e-mail calls to action urging activists to contact their members of Congress to defeat the bill—more than 7,000 messages went to Capitol Hill opposing the bill in just one day.

Alliance leaders also keep in touch with grassroots activists through conference calls. Every 10 days to two weeks, as many as 100 Alliance grassroots leaders join a conference call with national Alliance officials to discuss the status of bills and to exchange ideas about strategy and potential actions.

The conference calls, Fransetta says, help members speak with one voice and build confidence among the chapters when each one knows what’s going on and is a part of the decision making.

Raising the pressure

Alliance members cranked up the pressure on their lawmakers during the congressional recesses in July and August. Thousands of seniors held rallies and meetings in 30 cities at the home offices of members of Congress during their August recess leading up to the Alliance’s national legislative conference.

“These bills are outrageous, and we know we can do something about it if we all stick together,” says Ed Richardson, president of the Ohio State Troopers Retiree Association.

The rallies kicked off at the Batavia, Ill., district office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R) July 21, where five busloads of seniors traveled to protest the sham prescription drug proposals. But instead of a meeting with Hastert, the seniors were met by local police in full riot gear.

Carrying signs such as “Don’t Privatize Medicare” and “The Bush Plan Is the Wrong Prescription,” Alliance members and activists from other community groups had planned to deliver to Hastert a letter detailing a better bill—but police blocked the building entrance. The Batavia police chief received the letter and there were no arrests.

Two days later, more than 100 activists marched in front of Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) district office in Phoenix. Seven members of the Arizona Alliance—including Kaufman-Phelan—were arrested for trespassing when they refused to leave the office until they could meet with Kyl. In all, the Arizona seniors held seven demonstrations at Kyl’s district offices across the state. Eventually, Kyl agreed to see a group—but only in his Washington, D.C., office.

Shortly after, seniors set up two lemonade stands—one outside the Phoenix office building where they had been arrested and one in front of Kaufman-Phelan’s house—to collect money for the trip. “The bill is a lemon,” Kaufman-Phelan says, “so we made lemonade.” They collected $1,600 for the trip. Ultimately, Kyl met with the seniors during their Washington, D.C., lobby day—but left early after saying he had an important phone call, Kaufman-Phelan says.

Although the activists have left Washington and Congress has not passed a meaningful prescription drug bill, seniors say they will continue to make their demands a major issue in upcoming elections.

“Don’t they know we’re struggling? It’s sinful what they’re doing,” says Eleanor Kuhns, 77, a retired garment inspector from Coal Township, Pa., and a UNITE retiree. “They can do better than this, and we’re going to keep hollering until they do better.” @