
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 10, 1995                   TAG: 9510100090
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

AARP LAUNCHES ALL-OUT WAR ON MEDICARE CUTS

After holding its fire all year, the nation's powerful lobby for seniors is declaring war on the GOP's plan to overhaul Medicare, heralding a titanic fight over the future of the medical insurance program for America's 37 million elderly.

In a nationwide advertising and mailing blitz to begin today, the American Association of Retired Persons plans an all-out attack on the Republican plan to reduce Medicare spending $270 billion by 2002.

``We think $270 billion is too much and seven years is too fast,'' said one top AARP official.

Details of AARP's campaign were not immediately available, in part because the group was still buying newspaper and broadcast ads around the country Monday.

The high-profile drive also will feature mass mailings of ``legislative alerts'' to millions of AARP members.

``It will be [war],'' said another senior official.

The campaign makes the 30 million-member AARP the first major lobbying organization to openly fight congressional Republicans, who until now have kept the powerful medical interest groups at bay on the issue of Medicare reform.

A big question now is whether insurers, doctors and hospitals will follow AARP's gambit.

by CNB