Question: My wife and I are both in our mid-70’s and have seen our health care and prescription costs increase rather dramatically over the past several years. We both retired when we reached age 67. We have written our congressman and senator in Washington, and received letters back from both of them that don’t address our concerns.

Our question: What does it take to get someone’s attention up there about the fact that seniors like us are sick of being ignored? We have paid taxes since we began working, and we continue to pay taxes, yet issues that affect us are disregarded.

Answer: The population of the United States is now at 300 million, behind only China and India. And, according to the Census Bureau, when considering births and deaths, we gain about 36 new citizens every hour. Our population has increased from 100 million in 1915 to 200 million in 1967 to 300 million today.

By 2030, experts expect that 20 percent of our population will be made up of those citizens who are over age 65. Yet, seniors continue to get short shrift from politicians who are noticeably available and “concerned” only every two or six years when it’s re-election time.

A recent poll conducted by the Kaiser Foundation tells us that 46 percent of voters are “very worried” about rising health care or insurance costs, slightly more than the 43 percent who fear their income won’t keep pace with rising prices. And, more than 27 percent are concerned that they won’t be able to pay their rent or mortgage. According to this poll, “women are more concerned than men about the rising costs of health care, and consider health care their most important voting issue.”

In addition to health care, there is also a growing number of foreclosures against seniors who have borrowed money because they don’t have enough money to live, but then can’t pay it back
While the war in Iraq is a dominant election issue this year, three-fourths of those polled do not believe that Congress has paid enough attention to such domestic issues as “the economy, education and health care.” Not surprisingly, “seniors are much more likely to mention Medicare as their top health-care issue than younger voters.”

We agree with Kaiser Foundation President and CEO Drew E. Altman, Ph.D., who said, “It’s not enough for the public to worry about health care. Health care needs to compete with other issues, and national candidates need to start talking about health care reform [for it] to break through as a national political and policy priority.”

Yet, instead of dealing with these and other important domestic and economic issues that are affecting hundreds of millions of Americans, especially those on fixed incomes, Congress has again chosen to divert its attention away from these vital topics and hold hearings, instead, about which of them knew what, and when, about former Congressman Mark Foley -- at a significant cost of resources. These resources, we believe, could be put to much better use because, in the final analysis, no one is going to believe what any of them tells us, anyway.

Seniors traditionally turn out and vote. In the process, they must start making much more noise and demanding action on health-care issues. A good start would be to force Congress to modify the recently passed legislation that forbids the federal government, amazingly enough, to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices.

To see the entire Kaiser Foundation poll, go to www.nextsteps.net and click on the link for the full poll results. OR our online readers click here