Alliance For Retired Americans - Founding

Founding

The labor movement in the United States had promoted health insurance for the poor and indigent since the 1920s. But little legislative interest had been taken in the American Federation of Labor's proposals.

The political environment began to change in the late 1950s. The Eisenhower administration began to study the needs of the aged, and liberal Republicans began to support health insurance for the elderly. As President Eisenhower's administration drew to a close in 1960, planning began for the first White House Conference on Aging, to take place in 1961.

The by-now merged AFL-CIO held some influence in the Republican White House. Nelson Rockefeller, then an undersecretary in the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, was planning a political career and wanted to be on good terms with George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO. It was Rockefeller who had primary responsibility for planning the upcoming conference. Meany, meanwhile, assigned Nelson Cruikshank, director of the AFL-CIO's Department of Social Security, to closely monitor Rockefeller. When it came time to appoint a chair for the conference, Cruikshank suggested Robert Kean, a liberal Republican congressman from New Jersey. Although Kean had not supported national health insurance previously, he had supported labor on several Social Security votes, had not opposed national health insurance, was open to new ideas, and sat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. If the White House Conference on Aging were to recommend national health insurance legislation, having Kean's imprimatur would be important. Kean was also not likely to use the power of his chairmanship against labor in the conference's hearings or votes on its final report.

Working with Rockefeller and his staff, the AFL-CIO then was able to get national health insurance assigned to the committee on income maintenance. The assignment was critical to the AFL-CIO's strategy for moving federal legislation forward, for the AFL-CIO had decided (as a matter of legislative strategy) that any bill should be offered as an amendment to the Social Security Act rather than as a stand-alone law. The American Medical Association (AMA), which vehemently opposed any national health scheme for the aged as "socialized medicine", was intent on stacking the Conference's committee on health with its representatives in order to block any health insurance discussion.

Meanwhile, events that occurred during the 1960 presidential election actually helped boost Cruikshank's chances at the Conference on Aging.

During the 1960 presidential election, the AFL-CIO worked to build a coalition in favor of national health insurance for the aged. As Senator John F. Kennedy stacked up primary wins, the AFL-CIO convinced the Kennedy team on August 12, 1960, to establish a 23-member group called "Senior Citizens-for-Kennedy." The goal of the group was ostensibly to help the candidate develop policy proposals on health care for the aged. Rep. Aime J. Forand (D-Rhode Island) was named chair of the group.

After Kennedy won the election, the AFL-CIO used the coalition built by Senior Citizens-for-Kennedy to push its agenda at the 1961 White House Conference on Aging. The AFL-CIO coordinated the work of these groups during the conference. It established a communications center, and mobilized witnesses and votes as needed. Whenever health insurance for the aged was brought up in any committee other than the Social Security committee, the proposal was voted down or declared out of order. When the Conference voted on its final report, the AMA was surprised to find a health insurance proposal part of the recommended legislative package. The AFL-CIO coalition had grown to more than 500 groups, and attempts by the AMA to strike the proposal from the report were easily defeated.

The success of the AFL-CIO coalition during the 1961 White House Conference on Aging led Forand to suggest that an organization be formed to push for similar legislation in the future. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), founded in 1958, did not have a substantial membership yet. The Democratic National Committee and AFL-CIO then worked together to transform the Kennedy group into the National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC). The new organization was formally announced in July 1961. The United Auto Workers and United Steelworkers pushed their retirees to sign up as members, and both unions as well as the AFL-CIO contributed seed-money to finance the group. Forand, who had retired from office in 1960, became the NCSC's first president and William Hutton, a public relations official with the AFL-CIO, its first executive director.