Remarks to Members of the National Council of Senior Citizens.

President Edelman, Under Secretary Cohen, Commissioner Ball, the officers and members of the National Council of Senior Citizens:

It is fitting that we should come together once more on the eve of a great new era for older Americans. Next month the medical care program that you and I labored so long and so hard for will become a cherished reality.

We hope that never again will an older American need to go without basic medical care simply because he can't afford it.

We hope that never again will children and grandchildren have to sacrifice their future to pay the medical bills of the older members of their family.

We hope that never again will our aged be threatened with economic ruin whenever illness strikes them.

Medical care will free millions from their miseries. It will signal a deep and lasting change in the American way of life. It will take its place beside social security, and together they will form the twin pillars of protection upon which all our people can safely build their lives and their hopes.

There will be problems at first while we make up the ground that we have lost through years of neglect. Doctors and nurses, hospital beds and personnel, will be in short supply in some communities. To make up the most ground in the shortest time, we will need all the help that we can get.

I have asked you this morning--you and every one of your local organizations--to get in there and help all that you can.

Please tell your members and your friends to cooperate with their physicians in scheduling their hospitalization. Alert your hospitals to the requirements of the law, particularly the nondiscrimination requirements of title VI. Encourage them to meet those requirements.

Above all, help your health officials to evaluate the impact that medical care will have on local facilities. Be the leaders and the doers in modernizing and expanding those health facilities.

Together we must--and we can--make this program work. Together we will guarantee older Americans the care that they need and the care that they deserve. Together we can quicken the race and add to the number of successes already achieved.

In the past 2 1/2 years we have increased appropriations for health and education by almost $10 billion. Some of it has trained more doctors, dentists, and nurses. Some of it has built more hospitals and nursing homes. All of it has been well spent. But it is just the beginning of the greater returns and rewards that we really have a right to expect.

So I do not see Medicare as a problem. I do not believe the few of little faith who have said that it would fail. I see it as a blessing. I say it will succeed. I see it as a beginning and not an end. I say it is another battle in the large struggle to ennoble man's life. And I ask--and I expect-every man's hand to join with mine in that.

Several weeks ago, I told the United Auto Workers convention that was then meeting in California that we just have not started to think honestly about how to give meaning to that part of life which lies beyond the age of 60 or 70.

So let us begin today.

Let us start here and now to build a new ideal of what ought to be the meaning of growing old. Let us here proclaim a bill of rights for older Americans. And let us make it our guide in the years ahead.

What will we have in that bill of rights? The first right is the right to an adequate income. In 1936, with the passage of the Social Security Act, we built an income floor in America for millions of retired workers. Since then we have raised that floor and broadened it for the benefit of nearly every American over 65.

But that floor is still too low. Nearly 5 1/2 million of our senior citizens still live in poverty and many, many more on incomes that cover only the barest essentials of life. And we intend to improve and to try to help correct this.

The second right is the right to a decent home. Since the beginning of 1964, our commitments for senior citizens' housing have already increased from 110,000 to nearly 175,000 units--an increase of nearly 60 percent. And while these 175,000 units will house more than a quarter of a million older people, it is obvious that we have just begun to scratch the surface.

The 1960 census shows us that nearly 3 million elderly families were living in totally inadequate housing. We would like to correct this. We intend to correct this. We want to give every senior American a dwelling that is not only adequate, but also designed for his particular comfort and safety. One of the most promising answers to this special problem is the new rent supplement program that is now before Congress that will permit private building to help us solve this great problem.

The third right is the right to a meaningful retirement. A great nation cannot just put its older citizens on the shelf. It must provide a life for them where leisure has purpose and purposes give fulfillment. Some of our senior citizens want to work, and they should be given that right. Some of them want to go back to school, and they should be given that right. Some of them want to develop new skills and hobbies, and they should be given that right. And some want to volunteer their services in community programs, and they should be given that right.

I see all of these as major and attainable rights--not just distant dreams, but practical goals to reach for today if there is to be a truly great society tomorrow.

But essential to them and underlying each is the basic right of every older American to a decent income. It is a major objective of this administration to improve the level of benefits provided by our social security system. As your President, I have already signed into law provisions increasing social security benefits for more than $1 1/2 billion a year, an increase already of some 7 percent.

Yet, notwithstanding that, too many of our older citizens are still struggling along on shoestring incomes, suffering real hardships and suffering real need. Social security benefits are the major source of retirement income for just about all older Americans. For half of them they are the only source. Now average benefits of $80 a month for a retired worker and $142 a month for a couple are just not good enough--and not nearly fair or not nearly decent enough.

I propose, therefore, that we increase social security benefits across the board for the entire 21 million beneficiaries now on the rolls: retired older people, disabled people, the widows and the orphans--and for those who will come on the rolls in the future. I think it will make for a better future not just for older Americans, but for just about every family today and tomorrow.

I have already asked the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to develop for me proposals for the improvement of social security benefits in time for the next session of Congress. This will be a very high and a very major priority on my agenda.

Now I want to close by thanking you and your organization for the contribution that you have already made to the Medicare program. You have helped to inform millions of its purpose by your role in Medicare Alert. You deserve much of the credit for the gratifying results. Ninety percent of all the people 65 or over in this country--17,200,000 persons--are now signed up to pay $3 a month for the voluntary part of the program covering physicians' fees. I doubt if ever before in history that many people in so short a period ever agreed to any single thing.

We are not just hoping for success in this program, we mean to try to guarantee success. Last night we sent telegrams to 200 of the Nation's top medical and hospital leaders. On June 15 they will meet with me here at the White House for a final examination of the future of medical care--to review every plan, to discuss every problem, to take every necessary step that we can anticipate in advance to make sure that the reality of Medicare matches the hopes that we have had for the last 20 years.

I think that you agree with me that we are not concerned with appearance; we are concerned with achievements. We are concerned with accomplishments.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing by us over the years. I count on your support in the exciting and challenging days ahead.

I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said of the Presidency: "It is a splendid misery." With all the miseries that the President has every day, the strength that comes to him that permits him to overcome them and to endure them, without succumbing to them, comes in the knowledge and satisfaction he gets from knowing that in efforts like yours and ours together your country has made substantial progress toward helping 17,200,000 to lift this yoke and this burden that has been around their necks and on their backs all these years, and to give them a feeling of dignity, independence, and confidence that will permit them to go on and live out their remaining 10, 15, 20, or 30 years in confidence--and with a minimum of discomfort and with a maximum amount of proper treatment and proper care.

That is a satisfaction that means a lot to me. And it ought to mean a lot to you, because you have had so much to do with bringing it about.

Thank you.