Mr. Lehrmann, a retired supervisor of vocational education programs in Madison, Wis., said, "If either bill is defeated, health care reform will be dead for years to come."

But Aubrey Parsons, 73, a retired supervisor of an electricity plant, sees it differently.

Elena Wells, a retired supervisor for New England Telephone living in Medford, Mass., is one of many people getting sticker shock from falling rates.

Marcella Farrell, a retired postal supervisor and a homeowner here with her husband, John, said that limiting mailbox clusters to only two locations would be ill-advised.

"We took straw and we made bricks and we built houses," says one retired supervisor.

Mr. Solero, a retired supervisor of the dressing room at a tennis club, bought his one-bedroom apartment seven years ago for about $11,000.

"A lot of mob guys want to be legitimate," said J. Bruce Mouw, a retired supervisor with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who specialized in tracking organized crime.

His mother is a retired supervisor of dining services at Penn, and his father was president of the Penn Dining Services Employees Union.

Joe Pomponio, a retired postal supervisor from Massapequa, is 82 and the elder statesman of the hiking trail.

Mr. Rybka, a retired supervisor for North American Philips Corporation, is a champion of tree planting and works part time for the town's recycling center.