HoC_300pOver the weekend, I walked past my wife and kids watching the new season three of Netflix’s House of Cards and was stunned to see the evil President Frank Underwood ranting at his cabinet to get on with designing his jobs program that would be funded by slashing the “entitlements” of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that are "sucking us dry."

I gave an impromptu lecture to the family on the folly of this policy position—I’m not sure they noticed. And of course, we've also written many times about the false narrative of zero-sum intergenerational conflict. (Read Pitting Older Adults Against Children Is a Zero-Sum Game and Analyze This: Misleading Federal Spending Stats Pit Children Vs. Older Adults.)

But what can anyone do when even television writers feel comfortable with this notion that the benefits that older adults earned in their lifetime of work are a dagger to the heart of the nation? While Underwood is certainly a morally compromised character, in this scene he is actually portrayed as the hero, taking decisive action in the face of a roomful of indecisive, equivocating, naysaying bureaucrats.

It seems fruitless to make dry arguments about adjusted poverty rates, intergenerational compacts, the relative simplicity of a Social Security fix, and the value of health insurance for older adults to all members of American families—"everyone knows" that older adults are just greedy geezers and public programs that support them are only throwing good money down a rat hole.

Click on image to view or download a PDF of the Frameworks report, Gauging Aging. Click on image to view or download a PDF of the Frameworks report, Gauging Aging.

In fact this high emotional hurdle is one of the key findings of a recent study by the Frameworks Institute, which was co-funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation along with partners at The Atlantic Philanthropies, AARP and the Archstone, Retirement Research, Rose Community and Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundations.

Frameworks, which is best known for its work on behalf of disadvantaged children, does sophisticated analysis of the way that public policy issues are understood by the public ("framed") and how those understandings can block other ideas. For example, in our very individualistic culture, they argue that the default assumption is one of individual responsibility. So even the difficulties of disadvantaged children are often seen as the personal responsibility of their families and somehow themselves. The good news is that with this deeper understanding of how the public initially frames an issue, it is possible to craft messages that can change the public understanding and foster personal and policy action (e.g., “it takes a village” and “brother's keeper”).

In their first phase of work on aging in America, Frameworks interviewed and did focus groups with people across the country to see how aging is understood by the public and get a baseline on how some of our priorities (such as improved health care for older adults) are interpreted. They summarize their findings regarding the gaps between the views of experts on aging and the public:

  1. Negative understanding of aging. The negative modeling of the aging process as an obstacle to be overcome or an enemy to be vanquished prevents people from accessing and applying much of the "expert story" [e.g., that there are many positive ways to help older adults age well]. These deep negative understandings block productive thinking about the policies and actions required to improve the well-being of older adults and increase their opportunities to contribute to society.
  2. Individualism. The default to individualistic thinking about the aging process, and the multiple ways in which attribution of responsibility is automatically assigned to individuals, is a direct impediment to thinking about the importance of structural, systems and policy-level solutions on many aspects of the expert agenda.
  3. Lack of understanding of demographic changes. The poor understanding of the larger demographic trend of aging in our population, and its broad and shared implications for our nation, prevents members of the public from seeing the urgency and opportunities that experts attribute to this issue.
  4. Absent Ageism. A lack of attention to ageism keeps this issue off the public’s radar, and impedes attempts to address patterns of discrimination across the full spectrum of our society.
  5. Fatalism. Fatalism about our collective ability to engage in, and find solutions to, the challenges of an aging population depresses people’s sense of efficacy which, in turn, decreases support for policies and solutions.

These framing beliefs have clear implications for policy concerns such as Medicare and Social Security. But even in our own area of focus—quality of health care and the health of older Americans—I think they play an important role. Is it any wonder, then, that the nation has been so slow to think about changes to health care education and delivery to improve care of older adults when the public doesn’t want to think about it, they aren’t sure it can be done, and they think that this is somehow something that people should be doing on their own?

Going forward, we are excited about the possibility of Frameworks crafting some of the same kinds of mind-expanding messages they have used to change the discussion regarding disadvantaged children to re-frame the debate on aging. Think about it: It is true that kids are our future. But it is also true that older adults are our future.

Finally, I have to say that if a nation finds itself seriously considering the policy ideas of a devious, violent, corrupt, and dishonest television politician, it clearly needs to reevaluate its priorities.

Visit the Frameworks Institute Aging page for more information, downloads of the Gauging Aging report, and a webinar recording of a presentation on the report's findings.