The Iowa 2008 blog is a companion to AARP Iowa's Voices for the Future. Conversations reported here are the views of attendees and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of AARP. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that does not endorse any candidates nor make contributions to political parties or candidates.
Chariton, Iowa
The Chariton Community Center set the stage for the first of 42 conversations that will be taking place across Iowa this summer.
More than a dozen people took part in the conversation. Attendees included health care workers, a lawyer, retired teacher, aging resources employees and a farmer. All attendees also had in common they worked for Hy-Vee at some point in their lives (Chariton being the headquarters for the Iowa grocery chain's distribution operations).
Once the conversation got rolling, various perspectives were shared and attendees were actively weighing options regarding the future of their health care and financial security.
With regards to financial security, the group continually emphasized the importance of starting financial education at a young age, in schools and at home, so children will understand the importance of saving money and staying out of debt. An idea that was thrown out to force people to save was to take 5 to 10 percent from payroll taxes (on top of Social Security) and put it in some sort of retirement fund. Attendees also suggested having the government help finance health catastrophes (that could result in financial ruin) and eliminating Congress's pensions to save the system money.
Prevention and individual responsibility were regularly emphasized with regard to solving health care problems.
