The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
July 13, 2015

Remarks by the President at White House Conference on Aging

East Room

11:12 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody.  (Applause.)  Thank you so much.  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Everybody, please have a seat.  Welcome to the White House Conference on Aging, everybody.  And please give Vicki a big round of applause for the outstanding work she’s doing to help women and families prepare for retirement.  (Applause.)

I want to thank the members of Congress who are here, those in my administration who’ve been working on this issue.  I want to especially point out one of my favorite former members of Congress, a legend who’s here today -- John Dingell.  (Applause.) John, thank you. 

John was elected to Congress when he was just 29 -- an over-achiever.  Ten years later, he presided over the House chamber for the vote to pass Medicare into law -- an achievement for which he and his father can take some credit.  Last week, John turned 89 -- so we want to wish John a happy birthday.  He’s been a retiree for six months, but he’s keeping busy -- just check out his Twitter feed if you don’t believe me.  (Laughter.)  So he’s still got some pretty strong opinions.  

It is wonderful to be here with all of you.  Many of you have devoted your careers to advocating for older Americans.  You understand the whole terrain -- not just the challenges, but also the opportunities; not only the questions we’re asking today but the questions that we have to start thinking about for tomorrow. And because this conference takes place just once a decade, we’ve got to make it count.  

So one of the best measures of a country is how it treats its older citizens.  And by that measure, the United States has a lot to be proud of.  Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security are some of our greatest triumphs as a nation.  When Social Security was signed into law, far too many seniors were living in poverty.  When Medicare was created, only a little more than half of all seniors had some form of insurance.  Before Medicaid came along, families often had no help paying for nursing home costs.  Today, the number of seniors in poverty has fallen dramatically.  Every American over 65 has access to affordable health care.  And, by the way, since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, the uninsured rate for all Americans has fallen by about one-third.  (Applause.)  Just thought I'd mention that.  (Applause.)  

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT:  That was pretty good.  (Laughter.)  

Together we declared that every citizen of this country deserves a basic measure of security and dignity.  That choice saved millions upon millions of our people from poverty, allowed them to live longer and better lives.  So we got to be proud of that.  These American endeavors didn’t just make our country better, it reaffirmed our greatness as a country.  And it’s hard to find a single American whose life hasn’t been enriched by these covenants in some fashion.  

My grandmother was a fiercely independent woman.  She helped to raise me.  She didn’t have a college degree.  She worked her way up, working on bomber assembly lines -- Rosie the Riveter -- during the war, and then went on, got a job as a secretary and then kept on working her way up until she was vice president of a local bank.  And after my grandfather died, she chose to live independently.  And Medicare and Social Security allowed her to make that choice.  

She had the confidence that, having worked hard, played by the rules, she was rewarded with a safe foundation for retirement and she could not fall through those cracks.  That was a promise this country made to her and all its citizens.  And as a grateful grandson -- who happens to be President -- that is a promise I'm going to make sure we're going to keep for future generations.  We've got to make sure that it's there for people who are working today.  (Applause.)

But we’re going to have work for it.  We have to work to do more to ensure that every older American has the resources and the support that they need to thrive.  That challenge -- protecting our seniors, dealing with the rising costs of an aging generation, ensuring we have enough home care workers looking out for our family members -- (applause) -- maximizing the contributions that older Americans can make to our country -- these challenges are just becoming more urgent.  

And here’s why.  When we won World War II, everyone came home and had babies.  I mean, not literally, everyone, but a lot of people had babies.  (Laughter.)  And now, each and every day, almost 10,000 of those babies turn 65 years old.  So more than 250,000 Americans turn 65 every month.  They’re living longer and they’re living healthier.  We’re seeing people break athletic records in their 60s.  

Diana Nyad is here today, by the way.  You do not want to race her in anything.  (Laughter and applause.)  Arguably the toughest justice on the Supreme Court is the oldest -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- (applause) -- also known as the Notorious R.B.G.  (Laughter.)  She’s tough.    

In just about every field, Americans who once might have been dismissed as out of touch or past their primes are making vital contributions in every field.  And all of us, as a consequence, are able to raise our own ambitions about what we hope to achieve in our golden years.  And since I’m living out dog years here in the presidency -- (laughter) -- this is something I’m paying a lot of attention to.  (Laughter.)  Look at this hair.  (Laughter.)  Although I do have hair.  (Laughter.)  Crowley was laughing a little bit too much over here.  (Laughter.)  

So since these golden years are coming pretty fast, I want to make sure that we briefly focus on what we’ve done to strengthen already Medicare, and take a longer look at what we have to do to strengthen retirement even more.  

Now, we’re often told that Medicare and Social Security are in crisis.  We hear that all the time.  And usually, that’s used as an excuse to try to cut spending on those bedrock programs.  But here’s the truth.  Medicare and Social Security are not in crisis, nor have they kept us from cutting our deficits by two-thirds since I took office.  Both programs are facing challenges because of the demographic trends I just talked about.  And for Medicare, that means we’ve got to keep slowing the growth of health care costs, and keep building on the progress we’ve already made in the past few years.

Since I signed the Affordable Care Act -- also known as Obamacare -- (applause) -- since we signed the ACA into law, we’ve extended the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 13 years.  We’re moving Medicare towards payment models that require quality of care instead of quantity of care as the measure of what you get paid, creating a different set of incentives.  And that’s something that will keep older Americans healthy and Medicare healthy as well.  What’s more, this law has saved over 9 million people on Medicare currently more than $15 billion on their prescriptions.  (Applause.)    

Now, that doesn’t get a lot of notice, but I want everybody to understand.  Built into the Affordable Care Act, 9 million seniors have gotten significant discounts on their prescription drugs.  They don’t always know that it’s because of Obamacare, but that’s why they’ve been paying cheaper drug prices.  It’s also given nearly 40 million people on Medicare free preventive health services.  And we’ve expanded the options for home- and community-based services offered by Medicaid, which means that more older Americans are able to make the same choice that my grandmother did and live independently.  (Applause.) 

So those are some areas we’ve made progress.  And Sylvia Burwell, who’s here, our Secretary of Health and Human Services, I’m sure at some point during this conference will be talking about additional steps that we need to be taking to further improve a delivery system.  

And understand, the goal here is not to cut back on services.  The goal is to make sure that you’re getting more of the services that you need, less of the services you don’t, so you’ve got more money left over to do even more stuff that you need to keep you healthy and active and thriving.  Because we have too much waste in the system that’s not benefitting patients, but oftentimes just has to do with a really inefficient system or, in some cases, works really well for providers but doesn’t work well for the consumer.  

Now, even as we’re dealing with the health care side, we also know that too many older Americans leave the workforce without having saved enough for a dignified retirement.  And it’s not as if they haven’t tried -- Vicki touched on this issue.  There are a lot of folks out here who work really, really hard, but at the end of the day just still don’t have enough of a nest egg.  In today’s economy, preparing for retirement has gotten tougher.  

First of all, most workers don’t have a traditional pension -- what we used to understand as a defined benefit pension where you were guaranteed a certain amount every year once you retired. A Social Security check on its own oftentimes is not enough.  And even though, as a consequence of some of the steps that we took, we pulled ourselves out of a terrible financial crisis and the stock market has now doubled since I took office -- which means that it’s replenished the 401(k)s for millions of families -- (applause) -- so that’s been important for millions of families across the country, but a lot of people don’t have any kind of retirement account at all.  

So we’re going to have to work hard to deal with these issues.  Number one, we have to keep Social Security strong, protecting its future solvency.  (Applause.)  And I think there are ways, creative ways that people are talking about to protect its future solvency, but also strengthen retirement security for our most vulnerable neighbors.  So that’s step number one.

Step number two -- for Americans who are doing the hard work of saving for retirement, let’s make sure that they get a fair deal.  Earlier this year, I announced new steps we’re taking to protect Americans by cracking down on conflicts of interest in retirement advice.  The goal here is to put an end to Wall Street brokers who benefit from backdoor payments or hidden fees at the expense of their clients.  If they are advising you on how to save your money, they should be looking out for you -- not for somebody who’s selling a product that may not be best for you.  And for the many brokers out there who are doing the right thing, this rule levels the playing field for them and their customers. The notion here is, is we want to make sure responsibility is rewarded and not exploited.  So there’s a consumer protection element to this whole thing.

Number three -- we’ve got to make it easier for people to save for retirement.  And today, I’m pleased to announce an important step that we’re taking to do just that.  Right now, about one-third of American workers do not have access to a retirement plan at work -- one-third.  That’s why every budget request I’ve submitted since taking office has included a common-sense proposal to automatically enroll workers without access to a workplace retirement plan in an IRA, which would provide an additional 30 million Americans with access to a retirement plan at work.  

Now, unfortunately, Congress has repeatedly failed to act on this idea.  The good news is states are stepping up -– just like they’re stepping up in other areas where Congress is not doing its work, like raising the minimum wage or making paid sick leave available for working families.  (Applause.)  So far, a handful of states have passed laws to create new ways for people without a workplace plan to save for retirement.  And more than 20 states are thinking about doing the same.