The American Spectator : AARP’s Got Their Back

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AARP’s Got Their Back

By Philip Klein on 7.22.09 @ 6:10AM

The nation’s largest advocacy group for seniors says it’s nonpartisan, but its support for the Obama administration’s health care push places it on the side of bigger government yet again.

”I have the distinct honor of introducing a great American who has for all of his life worked for those who are in need and fought for the middle class,” Barry Rand, chief executive officer of AARP, said as he introduced Vice President Joe Biden last Thursday in Alexandria, Virginia.

Rand was addressing an audience of mostly older Americans, some adorned with red vests stamped with the AARP logo, about the urgent need for health care legislation. The gathering, which also included Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and White House Health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle, was billed as a meeting of Biden’s “Middle Class Task Force.”

After taking the lectern, Biden expressed delight at having the backing of AARP.

“I was a United States Senator since I was 29 years old, my experience is I’ve never lost with the AARP behind me,” he boasted.

The event was just the latest sign of the strong ties that the nation’s largest organization of older Americans has forged with the Obama administration as part of its push to overhaul America’s health care system.

“Together, we will complete the mission for comprehensive health care reform,” Rand declared at a recent White House event to announce a deal between AARP and the pharmaceutical industry. “Thank you for your leadership on this issue, Mr. President.”

During the current debate, AARP has funded ads pushing for health care legislation and hosted town-hall style events throughout the country. It has set up a website called “Health Action Now,” which urges visitors to sign a petition, imploring, “President Obama has promised health reform before the end of the year -- but we need to make sure that Congress follows through.” The site even has a feature in which users enter their phone number, wait for their phone to ring, and are automatically connected to their member of Congress, so that they can deliver AARP’s message that “the time for action is now.”

Of course, with one party controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, “action now” effectively means supporting Democratic legislation.

AARP aims to represent the interests of Americans over 50 years old. In the 2008 presidential election, the 45 to 64 age group split their votes nearly evenly, 50 percent for Obama and 49 percent for McCain, while McCain comfortably beat Obama in the over-65 age group, 53 percent to 45 percent. Clearly, AARP includes Republicans among its 40 million members, many of whom join the group to purchase insurance or to enjoy discounts. But the group routinely uses its money and influence to promote policies that would result in higher taxes and a larger role for government.

Though AARP bills itself as nonpartisan, its support for the current administration’s policies stands in stark contrast to the aggressive campaign it waged to help kill President Bush’s drive to reform Social Security in 2005. AARP’s backing of Obama’s health care agenda has not been deterred even though he has proposed paying for universal health care, in part, with $622 billion in Medicare cuts over 10 years.

Rand, who took the helm at AARP in March, was a strong backer of Obama in last year’s election, having contributed a total of $8,900 to the campaign’s various committees.

The seniors’ group does not make campaign contributions, but at the request of TAS, the Center for Responsive Politics analyzed federal election data of those who listed themselves as employees of AARP. While the actual dollar figures involved are low and there were only 123 such records available for the 2008 election cycle, the partisan breakdown was lopsided.

The analysis found that individuals linked to AARP gave $48,801 to Democratic candidates, party committees, and leadership PACs, compared with only $5,121 to Republicans -- meaning more than 90 percent of the money went to Democrats. (These figures do not include those AARP employees who may have contributed but did not identify their employer, nor did they include Rand, who did not work for the group until this year.)

When contacted for this article, representatives for AARP pushed back strongly against the insinuation that they were a partisan group, and defended the rationale for their stances in support of the Obama administration.

“The President has proposed savings in Medicare and we have basically been in favor of trying to reduce the cost of Medicare by reducing waste and fraud and finding efficiencies,” said David Certner, director of legislative policy at AARP. “That’s been our goal in this whole context, to see if we can come up with ways to lower the cost of Medicare, which will help make the program strong and still protect our beneficiaries from higher costs, copays, premiums, deductibles and so forth.”

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About the Author

Philip Klein is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent. You can follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/Philipaklein

Letter to the Editor View all comments (48) | Leave a comment

frost| 7.22.09 @ 6:30AM

Probably 15-20 years ago, maybe longer, when its agenda became so apparent, I wrote in response to a membership quest and flat-out told 'em: "Stop sending your garbage or I'll sue for harassment" - - and, surprisingly, they did cease.
Yet, in conversations with fellow geezers, they don't seem to realize what a creepy bunch AARP really is - - they see "caring" and discounts, not the full scope of its socialistic plan. Lack of education is not just a recent thing, I fear....

Michael L. Hauschild| 7.22.09 @ 6:47AM

Let’s see, they always side with the Brady bunch Second Amendment reformers and they applaud Biden. Right, let’s hear their take on health reform. NOT!

Melvin| 7.22.09 @ 7:21AM

Joe Biden... the giant orifice of Buffoon-ism.

Robert Rosencrans| 7.22.09 @ 7:37AM

When you skewer someone with facts it can be very painful, for them.

Michael Tomlinson| 7.22.09 @ 7:53AM

I guess the good news about the Obama health care program is that if it passes his "take a pill" mentality for treating ailing seniors will substantially cull the membership of the Democrat/liberal senior citizen lobbying group AARP.

Once I hit 50 in a few months I know I'll be deluged with mail from this liberal organization. My plan is to use their free mailers to send them rude comments that will cost them a few cents, but I will never join the group as I don't knowingly support Democrat/liberal organizations.

Any self-respecting conservative who is a member of AARP is aiding the left in destroying America and they should be ashamed of themselves. Suck it up conservative seniors and pay full price -- saving the country is worth it.

stuart reed| 7.22.09 @ 8:02AM

Well said Mr. Tomlinson! I'm 55 and used to get their propaganda in the mail regularly, that is until I told them what and where they could do with their organization. I'm willing to bet the leaders of this pack of jackals spent their formative years burning flags, planning "sit ins", tuning in turning on and dropping out, while generally contributing to the decline of democracy in favor of their socialist agenda.
F'em!

Curly Smith| 7.22.09 @ 8:03AM

The members of AARP better hope that the temperatures forecast by the Global Warming computer models will suddenly be correct. It's going to get mighty cold on those hills waiting for the wolves to come...

Old Soldier| 7.22.09 @ 8:14AM

It's ironic that the AARP is supporting this legislation. As Dick Morris pointed out yesterday - they are the losers when rationing starts. (Illegal immigrants are the big winners)

It will be fun to hear them howl when government healthcare officials tell the geezers that they should do their civic duty by dying sooner than later.

Rod Fisher| 7.22.09 @ 9:44AM

I became a strong anti-supporter of the AARP , when they opposed Bush's private investment accounts as opposed to SS. I can't understand why anyone would be against keeping and investing their own money as opposed to giving it to the gov't. Just another ex of this orgainizations liberal bias.

Joe| 7.22.09 @ 9:45AM

I worked at another org. NCSC a very liberal Seniors org 20 years ago. Back then AARP was known as the concervative side of the seniors debates. My how the mighty have fallen.

Bill| 7.22.09 @ 9:48AM

AARP members need to wake up. Most join because of the discounted insurance and other membership "benefits." These benefits are payoffs for joining an organization which routinely ignores the wishes of its members.

The sad thing is that many of its members know this but they like the membership benefits. We have a name for this its called being a sell-out.

saleboter| 7.22.09 @ 10:05AM

I really don't see how they can support this health care bill when it really SCREWS people over 65 by reducing medicare. I thought that's who they supported.

Haven't joined won't join, never will join.

saleboter| 7.22.09 @ 10:05AM

I really don't see how they can support this health care bill when it really SCREWS people over 65 by reducing medicare. I thought that's who they supported.

Haven't joined won't join, never will join.

ccemsljenkins@yahoo.com| 7.22.09 @ 10:33AM

The American Association of Retired Pharts is marching in lock step with the Liberal crowd, and marching straight to their doom, but hey, Stalin murdered or exiled a lot of his supporters too. Question is: do they know they're headed for the hospital or clinic's back door, or the morgue? The AARP leadership and members have Alzhiemer"s Disease or dementia. How else can their support of Nationalized Health Care be explained? Oh, I forgot, they will not have to pay for it!! (I've been receiving their tripe in the mail for years so I'm no youngster either.)

Gill O’Teen ✝✡| 7.22.09 @ 10:35AM

I concur with AARP spokesman Jim Dau’s statement quoted above that obumahcare seems like “a no-brainer.” That about sums up a complete mental assessment of all those supporting this outrageous attempt to establish an American ruling class to which all the rest of us will be subservient. Why else have those communists exempted themselves from the provisions of this bill which will be used as a means of determining who lives and who dies. Shades of the old Roman emperors employing thumb signals at the conclusion of gladiatorial contests. Well I have a hand signal for these boneheads, and it does not use my thumb.

Tim| 7.22.09 @ 10:36AM

Sheep to the slaughter.

Marc Jeric| 7.22.09 @ 11:25AM

AARP is a marxist-directed organization that has nothing to do with the defense of the elderly. Only a masive defection will cure that cancer.

Marc Jeric| 7.22.09 @ 11:27AM

How appropriate - that bloviating gasbag Biden parading his "smarts" in front of that marxist organization known as AARP.

Groucho| 7.22.09 @ 11:47AM

I'm sick and tired of conservatives sitting down and shutting up like dead fish.

Obama is not even a US citizen, he's a citizen of Kenya!

Basically he refuses to release his birth certificate and prove he's a US citizen. And he's a Muslim. His middle name is Hussein, as in Saddam Hussein, and do you think it's a coincidence his first name rhymes with Osama?

Groucho| 7.22.09 @ 11:51AM

Damn right Marc.

The AARP is a Marxist organization. They've been scheming for decades against capitalism, and they're run by athiests. They are definitely fascists. They believe in wealth redistribution and social security. They're communists, just like ACORN and the State Department.

Groucho| 7.22.09 @ 11:55AM

AARP = American Althusserian Revolutionary Phalanx

Al Adab| 7.22.09 @ 12:01PM

Interesting how AARP sucks in membership through their health insurance program. The they represent that all the "members" support their lobbying positions, a blatant falsehood.
Seems as though they are working against their own interest here backing the takeover. Makes one wonder what the real agenda is.

Groucho| 7.22.09 @ 12:02PM

Al Adab --

Do you have to ask? The real agenda is tied up in the liberal agenda, which is to destroy America and end capitalism as we know it.

Don| 7.22.09 @ 1:19PM

The AARP organization is a puppet controlled by the demorats. AARP leadership has been in bed with the demorats for years. The first concern of AARP leadership is pushing their liberal agenda and the last concern is representing , without bias, the views of all its members

Don| 7.22.09 @ 1:27PM

AARP leadership supports an administration that believes in killing babies by abortion. What will AARP do when this administration decides that to save Social Security and Medicare its members have to be eliminated when they reach a certain age?

Groucho| 7.22.09 @ 1:38PM

Don --
It's true. The AARP should stand for Advancing Abortion Really Progressively.

The AARP is just a mouthpiece for a bunch of socialist, baby-killing, terrorist sympathizing liberals in Washington DC.

Kent Lyon| 7.22.09 @ 2:43PM

Unfortunately, the Obama healthcare approach would result in rationing of care and restriction of access most specifically to AARP members. These are the ones that Obama says would be better off just getting the pain medication, instead of the surgery, and, by extension, just dying, as a cost saving measure. AARP is advocating reform that would deprive it of membership. That's really a no-brainer. AARP might as well be peddling Soylent Green recipes.

Fallgold| 7.22.09 @ 3:27PM

Seniors should realize that they are signing their
own death warrents by supporting socialized medicine. How do you think they are going to pay
for insuring 12 million illegal immigrants? They
will of course ration the health care of seniors. And once they start, watch the age limit drop.

Remember, the government hits a double jackpot
with rationing care for seniors. If your life ends
earlier, they also save on social security.

This is an evil plan. The evil that has cost the
lives of 49 million children, children that did not
get to enjoy one day of God's sunshine, is now
about to turn on the next weakest segment of the
poplulation, the seniors.

AARP, wake up!

Doug Spivey| 7.22.09 @ 3:54PM

Whenever I get snail spam from groups like AARP, the NY Times etc. I spam them back. I send the empty reply envelope with a phony name and address on it. That way they get stuck paying the return postage and, hopefully, mail another letter to a non-existent address.
I don't add the paper work inside as they may have my real name embedded in the application form. I consider it fun and wholesome entertainment for the whole family.

WR Jonas | 7.22.09 @ 4:15PM

Aside from the AARP angle, American senior citizens need to wise up to the fact that,whenever you yield your liberties, freedom of choice and responsibilities to the government they will damn sure use that against YOU.
You are delivering yourselves into the hands of those who will punish you.
They have told us so. Don't you believe them?

hoads| 7.22.09 @ 4:37PM

The AARP is another example of how the left creates the "pressure from below" to push for radical change by making useful idiots out of members of the left's concocted "advocacy" groups. Here's a great synopsis of the history of the AARP by a true advocacy group for senior citizens: The 60 Plus Association http://www.60plus.org/about-aarp.asp

Excerpt:

"But the full extent of the powerful empire built by AARP did not come to light until hearings sponsored by then U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY). The investigation of the finances of AARP provided a major bombshell in 1995.
The organization is a tax-exempt group which collects federal funds, about $86 million annually, from direct grants for such programs as tax counseling for the elderly to providing jobs for seniors under the "Senior Environmental Employment Program." Simpson rightfully raised the question over the use of a non-profit status for a group which makes millions selling its members medicine, insurance, and other products.
Senator Simpson’s hearings shined the light on an organization which claims to represent senior citizens but in reality represents big government, helped by taxpayer subsidies."

Missy| 7.22.09 @ 8:18PM

Groucho/Jeremiah--shame on you; I thought you were better than this newest nonsense of yours.

Don L| 7.23.09 @ 6:02AM

One of the problems from the capitalist view of the world, is that seniors need that discount and the capitalists failed to provide a non-liberal competitor. AARP succeeds because it owns the playing field.

Dave| 7.23.09 @ 6:58AM

This national collection of old pharts on oxygen and their long-time support for all things liberal - and especially Obama's current healthcare scam - reminds me of the title of that classic Charles Bronson movie:

Death Wish.

As far as their love for Super Joe Biden goes - I'd like to suggest to Super Joe to ... add a "B" to that logo on the front of his costume.

? (figure it out.)

MissButterfly| 7.23.09 @ 8:06AM

My husband and I are members of AARP, with (worthless) supplemental medical policies. We'll be cancelling the policies and our membership today.

carolyn | 7.23.09 @ 10:14AM

I was listening to Betsy McCoy yesterday and she said that AARP has betrayed its members. I was outraged because I have always known their partisan bias, yet this is such an outrage that its members have to get off the snooze train of discounts and benefits and allow this org. to crash on the tracks. Aren't we suppose to get more intelligent as we grow older----NOT!! Most people think that their small membership dues can't really hurt anything---well how about mulitplying those dues in the 100's of 1000's. Isn't that how enviormental and animal rights movements grew. Time to grow a brain.

Robert L| 7.23.09 @ 4:47PM

I just received some more Junk Mail from the AARP. Aside from trying to sell me all forms of insurance and special travel deals I don't need, the AARP is now asking me [SIC] for a donation to help support Obama Care. So, I'm to help build my own Gallo's. I think not. When my subscription runs out I'm done.

Mark Loomis| 7.24.09 @ 6:48PM

The seniors of this country have willingly embraced the agenda of the AARP. In fact the so called "greatest generation" is the one that has led the charge toward socialism. Don't forget that seniors are the wealthiest segment of our society.

Heartland| 7.26.09 @ 1:18PM

Maybe AARP has been promised government contracts to run Soylent Green type hospices under Obama"care". Maybe they are now just another ACORN type organization in charge of "organizing" and manipulating the elderly, eventually counseling them on end of life "options". I can envision AARP being in charge of this whole operation.

John Beauregard| 7.27.09 @ 6:39PM

I was an AARP member for 20 years even though I knew they were liberal leaning. Last week their support of the Obama, anti senior citizen, health care scheme was the last straw. I sent them an email requesting they remove me from their membership role and cease sending me their left wing propaganda and refund my membership dues. To my surprise, they complied. I strongly recommend all AARP members resign and request their dues be refunded.

Cindi| 7.28.09 @ 12:40PM

I just cancelled my membership to AARP. I did not know that they were a liberal leaning group and that they were supporting Mr. Obamas healthcare takeover. I informed the AARP rep that I wanted my husband and my name taken off of there mailing list. I told her that I was disappointed to find out that they were a liberal group and that AARP backed Mr. Obamas healthcare takeover. She told me that as of July AARP had not backed Mr. Obamas plan. I told her she better become more informed in what the company she works for is doing.

Bob Bennett| 7.29.09 @ 12:21PM

Members of Congress have the best health care in the nation, including free heath care in the VIP Ward 72 and free prescriptions.

Don't forget Obama has promised more than once that we can all have that same coverage.

This is no longer mentioned. In fact, members of Congress have refused to sign on to the much-vaunted public plan.

Berry| 7.31.09 @ 7:21AM

What I don't get is AARP stands for this healthplan takeover, but Obama is telling them if they get sick, he will pull the plug....

James H. Tilghman| 7.31.09 @ 8:09PM

If this is the stance AARP is going to take on the Health Care Bill then you have one less member. This adminstration is going to distroy the greatesst health care system in the world. It is not perfect. However it can be tweeked very easly if we will constrate on health for American Citszens and stop trying to provide care for anyone who walks in the door. Rest assured none of the countries these individuals who are sucking our medical system dry would not raise one hand to provide health care for me should I be stricken with an Illness in thier country unless I coulld pay for it.

david laplante| 12.3.09 @ 8:47PM

Hey,
Note that our elitists in the congress are not going to participate in this pathetic helath care reform. All these creeps want to do is become richer and more powerful at the expense and demise of the American people. It is time to dump these assholes. ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!! It is also time to teach organizations like AARP a lesson by putting these jackels out of business.

Tom| 1.11.10 @ 7:35PM

AARP CEO Barry Rand has to go... he's so out of touch of older Americans that he's a joke. I've tried to resign from AARP for weeks, but they haven't responded except to say "It will take some time."