“If I ran AARP for one day,” was half the title of a talk I heard recently at the annual conference of the American Society on Aging. The second half was “Ken Dychtwald speaks out,” a reference to the dynamic middle-aged consultant who, for the past 25 years or so, has made a career of taking often iconoclastic positions on issues affecting older Americans.
Better known on the west coast than on the east, this crowd-pleasing speaker recognized long ago the difference that demographics would make in this country. Before most others in the field of business, Dychtwald foresaw how the forthcoming explosion in numbers of older people would transform American society.
On this occasion he confronted the 35 million member organization that dominates the field of elder advocacy. The size of the membership should be reduced, incidentally, by some 15 thousand, said to be the number who have recently resigned because AARP gave its support to Medicare legislation of dubious benefit to this nation’s elders and younger Americans also.
In his hard-hitting but diplomatic manifesto, Dychtwald began by professing great respect for AARP. “They command the intellectual marketplace,” said this entrepreneur as he also expressed admiration for its annual revenue of 650 million dollars.
If there was a central theme in Dychtwald’s five-point critique of AARP, it centered on the model of aging implicitly used by the organization. “We need a new map of aging,” he affirmed, with the year 78 as the marker rather than the current 65 or below. At this point in history we are growing old later, and loads of older adults are discarding the worn-out stereotypes that have defined aging.
Older people now need to reinvent themselves, taking advantage of the multiple chances they have to grasp hold of what really matters in life. We have to focus on human possibilities, an attitude that involves looking for what people can give instead of simply what they can take. There is something wrong with wealthy elders holding on to their riches, while so many children lack health care, effective schools, and other basic goods.
Secondly, Dychtwald says, “We have created the wrong model of maturity in this country.” Later life is not a time for simply taking and receiving. He goes further to claim of this model: “It is morally and ethically bankrupt.” For elders to be watching 43 hours of television on average every week is a disgrace, because it means that by “goofing off,” they are betraying the purpose of living longer.
That purpose is to give something back to the society that has given them so much. AARP should redirect its energies away from getting more for older people and instead fix the problems of younger people and build the 21st century.
The work of Habitat in constructing homes for the poor stands out as a fine example of what can be done by older people, among others. Jimmy Carter, whom Dychtwald claims as a friend, has taken an active role as a builder, recognizing the value of service to others.
A third point: “Our health care system is wildly misaligned for an aging society.” The dominant model is wrong because it is based on acute care; we are not spending nearing enough on chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s that threaten to afflict many elders. Our medical schools do not teach geriatrics, with fewer than ten percent of graduates having taken a single course in the subject. Our communities need models of care that work, and the dying process needs to be deinstitutionalized.
In these and other areas of health care, we need leadership. The recent AARP-backed changes in Medicare did not fix this program. AARP could help older people learn that health care is a partnership and a shared responsibility between themselves and medical professionals.
Turning attention to the Boomer generation, Dychtwald bemoans their lack of financial planning. Twenty-five million members of this group have less than one thousand dollars in net assets, he says. Three-fourths of them have never had a conversation with their parents about wealth transfer. How can we prevent this next generation from a “financial train wreck,” he asks.
As to AARP’s future, Dychtwald would like to see an organizational transformation. It needs to tell the truth about its numbers involved in advocacy. AARP should admit that it is a special interest group and should reevaluate offering various discount programs.
The trouble is that AARP has become an empire and suffers no competition. “If it were a for-profit organization, it would probably be broken up at this point.” “You are not stimulated,” Dychtwald says to AARP, “because you have no competition.”
In concluding, the speaker urges AARP to change. “Do something spectacular!” “Be a leader!” “This is the big one: a revolution greater than the industrial and technological revolutions of the last century.You have the leverage to do it.!”
Richard Griffin