Change is necessary to ensure that Social Security and Medicare remain successful insurance measures in the future, Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) told an audience of more than 130 at the Institute of Politics last night.

Government intervention in the 1960s reduced the number of uninsured Americans over age 65 from 50 percent to zero, said Kerrey, a specialist on entitlement reform, but between 1995 and 1996, more than one million Americans went from being insured to being uninsured.

"The marketplace is not working for a lot of people today," said Kerrey. Congress, therefore, has a responsibility to "change" entitlement programs, "bearing in mind past successes."

Kerrey did not discuss the "specific proposal" he and retiring Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) have prepared regarding changes in Social Security and Medicare but instead described present-day problems that the proposal addresses.

The first problem, Kerrey said, is that "[Social Security] is not going to be able to keep all its beneficiaries."

In addition, Social Security payments will have to be given in a "substantially lower amount," he said.

In any policy, the government must not divert funds away from appropriations that are essentially investments in the future, Kerrey said.

"I don't believe we are spending too much on our parents, but we're spending too little on our kids," Kerrey said. "We are squandering millions of lives--the lives of our children, who are not getting the education they deserve."

Robert J. Blendon, Lee professor of health policy and management at the School of Public Health, responded to Kerrey's remarks, explaining his views of the long- term problems with Social Security and Medicare.

Blendon stressed that change can indeed be implemented "if people are careful" not to "polarize the national community."

"People know what the future is, but they are against broad-based tax increases and reductions in benefits," Blendon said.

"Softer ways" must be used to solve problems with Social Security and Medicare, he said