America's Greatest Generation - Our Senior Citizens

Floor Speech

Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you. I want to thank my colleague for sponsoring this Special Order. I know we're running close to being out of time, but this is such an incredibly important topic for us as daughters, as granddaughters, as nieces and sisters. We spend a lot of time going to senior centers. I do in my district. I believe, as my colleagues have mentioned tonight, one of the resounding themes of our seniors right now is they're afraid, they're concerned, they're worried. They don't know what the future's going to be because of all the rhetoric surrounding Washington.

The statistics that we've heard, a lot of them tonight, some of the ones that I've heard is that on top of more seniors living longer, we're going to have, the number of disabled elderly persons is projected to rise by one-third by 2030. As of January 1, 2011, each day 10,000, baby boomers turn 65. The numbers just aren't going to fit.

We've talked about the Republican plan to reform Medicare, to not touch those benefits of our present seniors, but to reform it for future seniors, for the baby boomers to come that are going to be turning 65 and going to have to rely on and need to rely on Medicare.

I'd like to talk about something in a personal way. We have a personal story, a lot of us. I'm in the sandwich generation. My parents are both in their eighties, and they're really having a pretty rough spell of bad health. And what it's done for my brother and sister and me, is we've had to spend--and we lovingly do this--but spend many, many hours trying to figure out how to meet their health care needs, try to figure out how to pay for all of their obligations and the worry of talking with doctors, trying to make sure they're comfortable.

This is a real worry for all families across the Nation. In our country, 66 percent of these caregivers are women, and I think that's why we, as women of the House, particularly Republican women of the House, wanted to discuss seniors and care. So, with this sandwich generation, with the rising incidence of Alzheimer's, which touches every family--and my family is no exception--it brings a different type of need to this country on how we're going to address these very difficult medical issues.

But if we don't address them--and we've heard this tonight--if we don't address them, if we just let them lie, let them stay the way they are, the way they are right now today, they will not be there. They cannot exist.

One of the ways I think that we can really help our seniors is to have an economic program in place to grow our economy so that their 401(k)s that they look at monthly, that they rely on for income, are growing rather than just dissipating and shrinking, which is another huge problem for our seniors. Many of our seniors planned very, very well for their retirement. They've kind of thought of them as their golden years, the times when they're going to be able to travel or visit more with their grandchildren and have the ease of life of the day-to-day obligations being met. And with the downturn in the economy, with the lack of growth in our economy, our seniors aren't able to do that. They put their heads on the pillow at night, and they're concerned about whether they're not only going to meet their obligations for their health care, but the gas, the food, and the payment for all of their needs.

We need to realize that we have plans. We have plans for our seniors. We know how important Social Security and Medicare are to our seniors. Maintaining it and making sure it's there for future generations is absolutely critical. I want to thank my colleague for inviting me here this evening and getting a chance to talk about something that I care deeply about, and that is our Nation's Greatest Generation.

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