SUNRISE, Fla. — It was karaoke night at the Sunrise Lakes retirement village, and 76-year-old Shirley Scrop, wearing a T-shirt commemorating her granddaughter’s bat mitzvah, was laying down a rap about health care.
“I walk in the morning and I swim in the pool, I go to the doctor because I’m no fool,” she chanted, swaying like Ray Charles in a tennis skirt. “At the doctor’s office, I don’t want to stay, but I sit and I sit and I sit all day.”
But truth be told, Ms. Scrop admitted after taking her bow, she would not change a thing about her health care. Only two months ago, she had surgery to remove a breast tumor, and Medicare and her supplemental policy covered the cost, while allowing her a broad choice of physicians.
That is why, despite voting for President Obama last November, Ms. Scrop now sees the health care debate in Washington as a source of considerable concern. Like many among the lipsticked poker sharks, treadmill walkers and mah-jongg warriors who stay active at the community’s Phase 4 Clubhouse, Ms. Scrop has found her lifelong allegiance to the Democratic Party competing with her fears that the cost of providing universal coverage will fall heavily on the aged.
“It’s scary,” said Ms. Scrop, a retired bookkeeper from Long Island who moved to southeast Florida in 1989. “If they change the benefit amounts, it’s going to come out of my pocket. I’m sure there’s going to be some kind of change. I just hope it’s not going to be too bad.”
It seemed to matter little that Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have vowed to protect Medicare benefit levels and have disavowed any interest in “pulling the plug on grandma,” as the president put it last week. Ms. Scrop and other residents of this sprawling community of coral-colored condominiums have heard about plans to wring hundreds of billions of dollars out of the projected growth in Medicare spending. Even though the largest of the proposed cuts would reduce reimbursements to hospitals, many fear that beneficiaries would ultimately lose out.
Whether or not they buy the false accusation that the Obama administration plans to set up “death panels” — some do and some do not — many express a generalized fear that care of the elderly will take a back seat and that access to procedures and drugs may be restricted. They paid into Medicare their entire working lives, several said, and basic fairness demands that they be allowed to keep what they have.
“I don’t want to have things cut from what I need,” said Sandy Burd, 64, the clubhouse social director. “If I’m 65 and need an M.R.I., I don’t want them to say, ‘I’m sorry, but it has to go to someone who’s 45.’ ”
Hal Goldman, 79, who retired 22 years ago from Sears, Roebuck & Company, echoed that sentiment.
“What they’re trying to do — Obama is — is take from the senior citizens and give to the poor and the illegal immigrants,” Mr. Goldman said “It’s hurting the senior citizens who worked all their lives. Because of their age, like in Canada, you’ll have to wait six months for an M.R.I.”
In fact, the health care bills circulating in Congress would not extend coverage to illegal immigrants, though they could reduce some of the choices that Medicare beneficiaries now enjoy.
In last year’s election, voters 60 and older were the only age group to support Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee. But that was not the case here in Broward County, which was critical to the Democratic victory in Florida. In the nine precincts that make up Sunrise Lakes, which is dominated by elderly Jewish transplants from the urban North, three of every four votes went to Mr. Obama.
That makes it particularly striking that there is such anxiety here about Democratic health care initiatives. Although the opinion is far from universal, some Obama supporters said they were regretting, or at least reassessing, their choice.
“I voted for President Obama, and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m sorry now because I don’t trust what he’s saying,” said Elaine Carl, 71, president of recreation at the development’s Phase 4. “I think they’re going to take away from Medicare. I really do.”
On Tuesday night, at three poker tables set up in the clubhouse lobby, disagreements over health care temporarily interrupted the kvetching about the broken air conditioning.
“I can go wherever I want right now, and if I’m told that I can’t, that would worry me,” said Ruth P. Fox, 82, as she slid a nickel into the pot (in clear contravention of posted regulations against gambling). “I have a geriatric doctor, and she’s wonderful.”
But Eleanor S. Robinson, who is 80, said her elderly friends tended to worry just to worry. “When Roosevelt put in Social Security, a lot of people were worried about that, too,” Ms. Robinson recalled. “And if we didn’t have a Social Security check now, all of us would be up a creek. You sometimes have to go forward and take a chance.”
There are others, of course, whose enthusiasm for Mr. Obama has not flagged. Ronald A. Clifford, 73, who patrols the property in a golf cart as a part-time security guard, blamed “roughnecks” for fomenting dissent at town-hall-style meetings because “they hate having a black president.”
“All in all, I support Obama no matter what he does,” Mr. Clifford said. “Whatever he does, that’s the emes. You know what that is? That’s Yiddish for the truth.”
Whatever the feelings about Mr. Obama, there was widespread appreciation that he had taken on an ambitious agenda.
“You have to give the man a chance; he took on a big task,” said Sylvia Bank, who said she had just celebrated her 88th birthday, prompting a friend to knock on wood. “If it was my son, I wouldn’t let him be president, not at this time.”
Hilda Gruber, 84, glanced up from her cards. “What does that have to do with the price of eggs in Afghanistan?” she asked.
Back in the ballroom, where the karaoke set-up had been underwritten by a supplier of motorized wheelchairs, Ms. Scrop said the best health care came from a positive outlook and regular exercise. She said she played tennis nine times a week, and line danced to boot.
“I’m not ready to leave this earth, because they only take good people up there,” she said with an impish grin. “Since I’m going to be here a long, long time, I don’t want my coverage to be too high.”
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