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American Morning

Study Finds Baby Boomers Expect to Live Past 80

Aired June 13, 2001 - 09:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: A new report being released next hour examines the hopes and concerns of the nation's baby boomers. The study finds that most boomers expect to live 80 years or more. They see access to the best medicine and treatments as the key to that, and they're hopeful that medical science will find some cures to major diseases during their life time. They support more spending for aging and medical research, maybe no surprise there, and they favor less government regulation on research.

Joining us now from Capitol Hill with more on this is Senator John Breaux of Louisiana. He is chair of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. And Daniel Perry of the Alliance for Aging Research, which conducted this study.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for coming out and explaining these numbers to us.

SEN. JOHN BREAUX (D), LOUISIANA: Thank you, Leon.

HARRIS: I don't know if can you explain this. One number I did see that was in the fax about every seven seconds, another boomer in America turns 50. That's kind of hard to do every seven seconds I would imagine. But let me ask you first of all, senator, what is the headline from this report? Is there anything new here that we have not seen or heard before?

BREAUX: Leon, I don't think there's anything that is out of the ordinary, sort of what you would expect. People want to liver longer, but not only that, they also want to live healthier lives. It's not just a question of medical science getting people to live to be 100, we want to make sure that they live in comfort and enjoy their senior years, and our aging committee is going to be focusing on that, and the Aging Research Council is going to be a very important factor in trying to find out how we get people to live better lives and not just longer lives.

HARRIS: Daniel Perry, give us an idea of what this information that you've been able to cull and put together, what is it actually telling us about ourselves?

DANIEL PERRY, ALLIANCE FOR AGING RESEARCH: Well, it tells us that the baby boom generation whose health and vitality in their years... HARRIS: Mr. Perry, I'm sorry. I hate to interrupt you. I'm sorry, but we have breaking news that we must get to immediately. I'm sorry about that.

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