PREMIUMS INCREASE Seniors, headed to the polls, note boost in Medicare cost

The Medicare price increase has the potential to affect the election.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
SUN CITY, Ariz. -- Nedra Christensen, 74, leveled a baleful glance at what had to be the silliest question she'd heard in a long time, here in what is billed as the biggest and oldest master-planned retirement community in America.
Of course the 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums -- the biggest in history and announced just days earlier -- would hurt people like her, living month-to-month on a small fixed income, she said. And of course it's going to propel her to the voting booth in November; when she gets there, it won't be pretty for the president.
"Our benefits keep going down, and the cost of getting help keeps going up," Christensen said as she made her way slowly from Fry's Food & amp; Drug to her white SUV.
Sends a ripple
When the biggest premium increase in Medicare's 40 years was announced Friday, it sent a ripple through this famed retirement enclave of neat bungalows, drought-resistant lawns and active recreation centers. In interviews with more than a dozen older voters here this week, all said they were at least aware of the price jump, which is scheduled to go into effect next year.
Not everyone was as alarmed as the former laboratory technician and her husband, a retired crane operator at a Utah copper mine. But almost everyone interviewed said they knew someone -- usually older and less well off than themselves -- who would feel the pinch of an extra $11.60 in premiums a month.
Chuck Burns, 73, the retired owner of an electronics corporation in Dallas, has little patience with politicians of any stripe.
"It's just like buying a loaf of bread. If it goes up, you've got to pay for it," Burns said, puffing on a cigarette and waiting in the shade for his wife to finish grocery shopping. No matter who's in the White House, he said, "there's no way to stop it. ... I think it's politics as usual."
Impact on election
The premium announcement comes less than two months before voters go to the polls. In addition, nearly two-thirds of the battleground states, including Arizona, have a higher percentage of residents over the age of 65 than the nation as a whole. And polls show that many Medicare recipients are already dissatisfied with changes in the program enacted in December, which would add prescription drug coverage for some.
What this all means is that changes in Medicare -- the primary insurance program for people 65 and older -- could reverberate throughout the fall election, said political scientists who specialize in issues related to aging.
"This year, given the salience of the Medicare drug benefit and the genuine disappointment of seniors in it and the increase in premiums ... it will reinforce and boost turnout among seniors even higher," predicted Lawrence Jacobs, director of the 2004 Elections Project at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. "It's going to have an impact."
America's seniors are famous for voting more regularly than their younger counterparts, with citizens between 65 and 74 voting more often than any other age group, according to the U.S. Department of Census. In the 2000 presidential election, for example, 72 percent of that group voted, compared with only 36 percent of citizens ages 18 to 24.
Reaching out
Which is why both parties have worked hard this election to reach out to the men and women who "turn out and are informed and tend to be focused on issues that affect them," said Susan MacManus, a political scientist from the University of South Florida, Tampa. "They'll read everything that comes into their homes. They watch more political television. They are the consummate informed voters."