Exclusive Interview With Barack Obama

Photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times/Redux

Barack Obama pondered the question: Why wasn’t he attracting more support from older Americans? Polls showed him leading Sen. John McCain among voters under 50, but trailing among those over 50.

The answer is complicated, Obama replied. But his bottom line is that he has some work to do.

“First, for a presidential candidate, I am young. So it’s not surprising that people with more experience in life would tend to put more stock in the experience argument,” he told the AARP Bulletin in a recent interview. “I also think people may not be as familiar with the sharp contrasts in issues between myself and John McCain when it comes to bread-and-butter issues that affect our lives.”

In a historic election where more than half the likely voters are over 50, they have received plenty of attention.

As the focus of this campaign year has swung from Iraq to the credit crisis to inflation and soaring energy prices, the Democratic candidate has consistently targeted what he calls bread-and-butter issues that are also core interests of older Americans—Social Security, accessible and affordable health care, middle-class tax relief, new energy sources, retirement savings and educational opportunity.

His strategy for the rest of the campaign, he said, is to highlight the differences between his ideas and McCain’s.

Social Security The Social Security system faces a financial shortfall and a demographic avalanche starting as early as 2011, the year the first boomers reach 65. Obama proposes closing much of that gap by imposing a payroll tax on income over $250,000, to begin a decade from now. He would also eliminate income taxes on those over 65 earning less than $50,000.

“Social Security is fixable,” Obama insisted. “It’s going to require some courage and it’s going to require some bipartisanship.”

McCain has modified his support for creating private Social Security accounts, but not enough to avoid Obama’s criticism. “I profoundly disagree with him on this,” Obama said.

Energy Obama puts energy at the top of his to-do list, in part because $4-a-gallon gasoline prices and sky-high winter heating bills have made the issue a major public concern. “If we don’t solve our energy problems soon, not only do we have a national security problem, but we also have an enormous environmental problem to go along with the economic problems it creates,” Obama said.

He proposes a $150 billion 10-year plan to reduce oil consumption by the 3.4 million barrels a day the United States imports from the Middle East and Venezuela. This includes a $7,000 tax credit for buying more fuel-efficient cars; cutting electricity consumption by 15 percent by 2020; and offering grants and tax incentives to retool U.S. auto plants, encourage research and development and double the use of renewable energy like wind and solar energy.

“That’s the low-hanging fruit,” he said. “The flip side of this is that there are huge opportunities for creating green jobs throughout the economy”—5 million by Obama’s estimate.

Health care On no issue are the differences between Obama and McCain clearer than their plans for the nation’s health care. The nation spends about $2 trillion a year on health care, a cost that is rising faster than overall inflation. Yet more than 45 million Americans lack medical insurance, and the costs of Medicare and Medicaid consume one-third of the federal budget. The amount Medicare spends already exceeds revenue from the Medicare portion of the payroll tax.

In contrast to McCain’s enthusiasm for private, nongovernment initiatives, Obama proposes mandated coverage for all children, a new national public health plan and a National Health Insurance Exchange, where those unable to get employer-provided care or with preexisting medical conditions could buy private coverage. He would finance the $50 billion- to $65 billion-a-year price tag for the health proposals by canceling the 2001 tax cut for people earning over $200,000.

Medicare As big a challenge as universal health care poses, “Medicare is what keeps me up at night,” Obama told the Bulletin. “That’s the thing that’s going to be boring a hole through our budget and crowding out everything else.”

He wants Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, supports importation of prescription drugs and would invest $10 billion for health care providers who implement health-information technology systems.

“We can’t solve this just by cutting people’s benefits or squeezing providers more. We have to emphasize wellness and prevention and rationalize the system so we’re getting more bang for our health care dollar,” he said.

The subject of health care energizes Obama, starting with the examples of his mother and grandmother. “These are not abstractions for me,” he said. “As someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make sure those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and who need care the most,” he told AARP members at their annual convention last month.

His grandmother is 87, with severe osteoporosis, and still lives in her Honolulu apartment. The lessons he learned from her involve long-term care and retirement planning. (He would require employers to establish automatic individual retirement accounts for employees.) “She is one of the savviest people I know. She worked her way up from the secretarial pool to vice president of a bank. She planned much more effectively than probably I would have in her circumstance. So her retirement is fairly comfortable,” he said. “What I’ve learned is that with some modest help she’s able to remain independent. And that costs the system much less than if she’d gone into a long-term care facility.”

Meanwhile, he faces the challenge of attracting more 50-plus Americans. By one measure, he’s gaining experience. “They want to see more gray hairs,” he said with a smile, then gestured to his head. “I would point out that over the past 19 months, I’ve accumulated quite a few.”

The Bulletin's interview with John McCain>>