AARP In the Tank for Obama Care: Time to Join the ASA Alternative

Will Malven
7/28/2009

Wow! The natives (senior citizens) are getting restless out there in AARP land.

The AARP held a "town hall meeting" with President Obama today and proved once again that the organization nothing more than a water-carrier for the Democrat Party and this President.

The audience was carefully selected to be supportive of the President and the questions carefully screened and prepared for. Once more we have seen this "most carefully scripted President in history" performing before a sympathetic audience.

A quick visit to the AARP Bulletin webpage lets us read the AARP's position on "health care reform." It reads like it was lifted directly from one of President Obama's speeches.

Where We Stand: Health Reform Now

By A. Barry Rand, CEO
Source: From the AARP Bulletin print edition July 1, 2009

All Americans should have affordable health care choices. But our current health care system costs too much, wastes too much, makes too many mistakes and gives us back too little value for our money. Moreover, roughly 47 million people, more than 7 million of them ages 50 to 64, are left out of the system altogether because they don’t have health insurance.

This has to change. For too many people, lack of affordable, quality health care is closing the door on the American dream. Moreover, our current health care system is unsustainable, not just for individuals but also for employers and government. I know from experience that unsustainable growth in health costs places a huge burden on American businesses. If these costs aren’t restrained, total spending on health care will rise from 16 percent of GDP in 2007 to 25 percent in 2025 and 49 percent in 2082, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s a price tag that we as a nation simply can’t afford.

AARP's health policy priorities

It’s also why health care reform is AARP’s top priority. We simply can’t fix the economy without restructuring the delivery of health care, expanding access and cutting costs. For families and workers, the loss of jobs has been compounded by pay cuts and reduced insurance coverage. Among the most vulnerable are people 50 to 64 who lack employer-sponsored insurance. For too many of them, the individual insurance market is often unavailable at any price because of exclusions for preexisting conditions..."

Gee Barry, do you think you could be in the pocket of the Democrat Party any deeper?

AARP has been flacking for Democrat policies for decades under the guise of doing for America's senior citizens. Doing for?...more like doing to. Though they claim impartiality, their arguments come directly from the Democrat Party playbook. They claim that they don't support any specific one of the plans now being reviewed in Congress, but one only has to read the CEO's statement to know where the organization's allegiance lies.

Remember, no one in Congress has read the complete bill...NO ONE! In an address at the National Press Club luncheon, Representative John Conyers (D-MI) said:[remember, this guy is the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee]

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill.'

What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

Yeah, that's right John, you don't need to know what it is you are voting on, just vote for it and hope for the best...YEEESH! With representation like that in Congress, no wonder we are in such dire straits. Here's a clue for you John, if you can't read the bill without two lawyers, maybe it's a bad bill.

There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of these "health care reform" bills, most having to do with the inevitable rationing of health services that universal coverage necessitates. Every nation that has gone the route the President is now attempting to take us has been forced to ration access to health care, often with tragic results for those who are forced to wait months instead of weeks for diagnostic and remedial services.

Fortunately we don't have to look to Canada or Europe to see the natural results of government run health care, we have an American test case in Massachusetts which has established a state mandated coverage system. Nick named "Romney care," because it was one of former Governor Mitt Romney's most touted accomplishments during the Republican Presidential primaries. Under Romney care the average time to see a doctor has risen from 23 days, before universal coverage, to 50 days.

The Boston Globe tells the story:

...Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, a Texas-based consulting and physician recruiting firm, surveyed 1,162 doctors' offices in 15 metropolitan areas, trying to replicate what new patients would experience if they were searching for a doctor for a nonurgent appointment, including a heart checkup, a skin exam to detect possible cancer, knee injury or pain, a gynecological exam, and a complete physical exam...

Here is a chart from the Merritt-Hawkins health care study:

Everywhere this sort of government run or government mandated health care has been attempted, you will find the same sort of results. Longer wait times for critical health care services.

Another of the promised results of Obama care and its congressional variants is that it will lower health care costs. That promise is implied in the position statement of AARP's CEO I excerpted above in which he mentions the rising health care costs. Again we can look to Massachusetts for real world American data and the data tell us that costs have risen under Romney care.

The question is, why is AARP so strongly supportive of these initiatives when any of them will result in longer waiting times and higher costs? Won't both of these problems hurt senior citizens rather than help them? Could it be that the Democrat Party agenda is more important to them than providing us senior citizens with better services? It looks that way to me.

Fortunately there are alternatives to the AARP.

RetireSave is a grassroots seniors' issues advocacy group which claims over 400,000 members. If you want a more objective view of what is going on with issues directly affecting us, RetireSafe looks like a good place to start.

For a senior citizens advocacy group that provides other services like Medicare Insurance prescription discounts and other senior discounts, the American Senior Association looks to be our best bet. I am currently investigating how they perform and what sorts of benefits they offer and I will report back at a later date.

ASA memberships are just $15.00 per year, so cost is not much of a concern.

There is no justification for an organization like the AARP claims to be to hold a biased political position or to be an advocacy group for one party. It is inexcusable; especially when the policies they are advocating would do more harm to senior citizens than good. We must not be held hostage to one single group like AARP.

I hate to give my seal of approval to any organization before I have fully checked them out, but the ASA seems to be a legitimate alternative to AARP's biased and unhealthy relationship with the Democrats.

Besides, it is never a bad thing for groups like these to have competition. The more of us who leave AARP to ASA, the more power ASA will have to lobby Congress on our behalf and to negotiate deals with private businesses to provide discounts to their members. It will also send a strong message to AARP that their members are not happy with their Left-wing agenda and it will send a strong message to Congress that AARP does not speak for a majority of us American seniors.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

What do you think?

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