One Nation Under AARP : The Fight Over Medicare, Social Security, and America's Future

Introduction: not going quietly -- Boomer basics: generation, culture, demographics -- Old age in a new society -- Boomers senior power potential: consensus, convergence or "do your own thing"? -- Crash landing for a self-critical generation -- Not your father's AARP : Bill Novelli builds a new boomer brand -- AARP turns 50: the healthcare reform battle -- You can't always get what you want: me, we, or AARP?;This book provides a fresh and even-handed account of the newly modernized AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons)--the 40-million member insurance giant and political lobby that continues to set the national agenda for Medicare and Social Security. Frederick R. Lynch addresses AARP's courtship of 78 million aging baby boomers and the possibility of harnessing what may be the largest ever senior voting bloc to defend threatened cutbacks to Social Security, Medicare, and under-funded pension systems. Based on years of research, interviews with key strategists, and analyses of.

This book provides a fresh and even-handed account of the newly modernized AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons)—the 40-million member insurance giant and political lobby that continues to set the national agenda for Medicare and Social Security. Frederick R. Lynch addresses AARP's courtship of 78 million aging baby boomers and the possibility of harnessing what may be the largest ever senior voting bloc to defend threatened cutbacks to Social Security, Medicare, and under-funded pension systems. Based on years of research, interviews with key strategists, and analyses of hundreds documents, One Nation under AARP profiles a largely white generation, raised in the relatively tranquil 1950s and growing old in a twenty-first century nation buffeted by rapid economic, cultural, and demographic change. Lynch argues that an ideologically divided boomer generation must decide whether to resist entitlement reductions through its own political mobilization or, by default, to empower AARP as it tries to shed its "greedy geezer" stereotype with an increasingly post-boomer agenda for multigenerational equity.

Introduction: not going quietly Boomer basics: generation, culture, demographics Old age in a new society Boomers' senior power potential: from social protest to self-preservation Crash landing for a self-critical generation Not your father's AARP : Bill Novelli builds a new boomer brand AARP turns fifty: the battle for health care reform You can't always get what you want: me, we, or AARP? Provides a fresh account of the modernized AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) - the 40-million member insurance giant and political lobby that continues to set the national agenda for Medicare and Social Security.