The Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization and nonpartisan organization of retired trade union members affiliated with the AFL-CIO, which founded it in 2001. The group's membership also includes non-union, community-based activists. Its predecessor organization was known as the National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC).
As of 2020, the Alliance has 4.4 million members nationwide"Enyart, the Democratic 12th U.S. House District Nominee, Gains Senior Group's Endorsement." Belleville News-Democrat. October 16, 2012. Accessed 2012-10-18. and has state programs in 39 states. It has 1,500 local chapters.
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.Weeks and Berman, Shapers of American Health Care Policy, 1985; Hoffman, and Hoffman, eds. The Cruikshank Chronicles, 1989.
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.Forand had sponsored legislation providing health care for the elderly in the 86th United States Congress. See: "Statement, Washington, D.C., Representative Aime J. Forand as National Chairman, Senior-Citizens-for-Kennedy Committee," August 12, 1960. Accessed 2007-01-06.
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.AARP also had a strong relationship with the Colonial Penn Insurance Company. Colonial Penn had access to the AARP membership list, and was opposed to any national health insurance scheme which might detract from its business. See Ball, "What Medicare's Architects Had In Mind," Health Affairs, Winter 1995. 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.Ball, "What Medicare's Architects Had In Mind," Health Affairs, Winter 1995.
Critical role in enacting Medicare In April 1963, President Kennedy met with leaders of NCSC. The meeting led the president to declare each May as "Senior Citizens Month" (now Older Americans Month). It was a sign of NCSC's growing influence.
NCSC was instrumental in passing Medicare. It backed a number of (admittedly abortive) legislative efforts, held rallies (including one gigantic, nationally televised event at Madison Square Garden, organized letter-writing campaigns, and attacked Medicare's opponents by bombarding them with mail and picketing their offices. The assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963 proved fortuitous for Medicare's legislative chances. President Lyndon B. Johnson considered old age health insurance to be a much higher priority than Kennedy did.
A shift in NCSC's strategy proved crucial in helping to build support for Medicare as well. NCSC began a major education campaign among middle-aged people, working to raise awareness of how burdensome hospital bills for the elderly could be. Medicare's passage in the US Senate was very close, and NCSC's efforts were considered instrumental in its enactment."Squared Off," Time, June 1, 1962.
Growth period and funding By the early 1970s, NCSC had grown to more than 2,000 state and local affiliates across the United States.Pratt, "Old Age Associations in National Politics," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 1974.
During the 1960s and 1970s, NCSC funded its activities largely through the use of federal funds. In 1965, President Johnson signed the Older Americans Act. Title V of the act created Operation Mainstream, which funded part-time employment for under-employed people aged 55 or older. In 1967, Operation Mainstream was renamed the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). The United States Department of Labor in 1968 chose NCSC as one of the organizations designated to operate SCSEP. NCSC called its program the Senior Alert, Industrious, Dedicated, Energetic Service ("Senior AIDES").
Although about 90 percent of NCSC's funds were spent on Senior AIDES, the organization stayed very active politically throughout the 1970s. NCSC was particularly active in lobbying for an anti-inflationary measure to protect seniors' incomes; and, it led an energy policy coalition to protect seniors from high energy costs.Battista, "Labor and Liberalism: The Citizen Labor Energy Coalition," Labor History, August 1999.
NCSC became embroiled in presidential politics again in 1980. Senator Ted Kennedy strongly wooed NCSC in his ultimately unsuccessful bid to win the Democratic nomination, going so far as to invite NCSC to hold its next national convention in the White House.Vale, "Kennedy Hailed by Senior Citizens," Associated Press, June 27, 1980.
NCSC became even more politically active in the 1980s. The organization fought a number of battles over funding for Social Security and Medicare, inflation and economic policy, heating and energy policy, and affordable housing for the elderly.
In 1984, Congress enacted the Environmental Programs Assistance Act. Within the act was a program called the Senior Environmental Employment (SEE). This program provided funds for people aged 55 or older to be employed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the ability to respond more rapidly to emergency situations and provide ongoing support for long and short-term projects. In 1986, NCSC became a recipient of SEE funds as well. That same year, NCSC started its first political action committee.Churchman, "Older Americans Find They Can Make Uncle Sam Listen," Christian Science Monitor, March 6, 1984.
In 1996, NCSC began the process of spinning off its government-funded, senior-employment and housing programs. It established a new division called the National Senior Citizens Education and Research Center (NSCERC), which continued to administer the SCSEP funds. The two organizations later formally separated, although many NCSC board members continued to serve on the NSCERC board. (NSCERC later changed its name to Senior Service America, Inc.)
Decline, reorganization and name change In May 2000, the AFL-CIO executive council voted to dissolve NCSC, and reform the group as the Alliance for Retired Americans. Labor-leaders also wanted to reform the group as a tax-exempt nonprofit to which tax-deductible donations could be made. The reorganization also meant that AFL-CIO members could now automatically enroll their retirees as members rather than ask them to sign up. The "new" organization was officially launched in May 2001.The AFL-CIO says that NCSC is defunct, and that the ARA is a new organization. However, press reports indicate otherwise, and point out that the two organizations share the same officers, board members, and affiliate unions. Amber, "AFL-CIO Launches Retiree Advocacy Group to Lobby on Prescription Drugs, Other Issues," Health Care Daily Report, May 24, 2001; Dine, "Labor Leaders Launch Political Organization for Retired Workers," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 24, 2001; Eaton, "AFL-CIO Mustering Its Retirees," Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 23, 2001; Greenhouse, "AFL-CIO Forms Retiree Advocacy Group," New York Times, May 24, 2001.