During last week’s presidential debate, realizing that he was
taking a beating on the Medicare solvency issue, Barack Obama
issued the following cri de coeur: “AARP thinks that the
savings that we obtained from Medicare bolster the system, lengthen
the Medicare trust fund by eight years.” Later, after enduring
several more blows to his credibility, the President went on to
claim AARP agreed with him that Romney’s plan would weaken
Medicare. Oddly, the “senior advocacy organization” took offense at
these remarks. Having provided full-throated support to the
President and the Democrats on Obamacare, and resisted Medicare
reform, AARP has begun to revert to its nonpartisan pose now that
Obama appears to be in trouble.
On Thursday, AARP issued this
statement: “AARP has never consented to the use of its name by
any candidate or political campaign. AARP is a nonpartisan
organization and we do not endorse political candidates nor
coordinate with any candidate or political party.” The hypocrisy of
this statement is breathtaking. AARP actively supported Obama and
congressional Democrats on Obamacare knowing full well that it
would cut Medicare Advantage (MA), an enormously popular program
among seniors, by $200 billion. This obvious betrayal of its
members was driven by the knowledge that these MA cuts would force
millions of seniors back to traditional Medicare and create a
captive market for AARP’s “Medigap” policies.
As I have written previously, this conflict of interest was not
lost on the House Ways and Means Committee. Last year, it conducted
hearings for the purpose of “getting to the bottom of how
AARP’s financial interests affect their self-stated mission of
enhancing senior’s quality of life. It is important to better
understand how AARP’s insurance business overlaps with its advocacy
efforts and whether such overlap is appropriate.” This didn’t
require much digging. AARP derives only about 20% its annual
revenue from membership dues. Meanwhile, the organization earns
more than $1 billion per year by endorsing various products,
including “Medigap” insurance policies that pay medical charges not
covered by traditional Medicare.
This is why AARP still supports the Obama administration’s
fiscally unsustainable policy of pursuing the status quo on
entitlements, and why it stands in the way of the Medicare
reform proposal sponsored by Paul Ryan and Democrat Ron Wyden.
AARP’s official position on the Ryan-Wyden plan is that they
continue to review it to make sure that it doesn’t “result in more
cost shifting to older Americans, and whether it will improve
health care quality and delivery.” Its actual position, however,
was made abundantly clear when Ryan spoke to the AARP convention in
September. Ryan was booed every time he mentioned the repeal of
Obamacare or voiced opposition to the irresponsible Obama policy on
Social Security.
But don’t mistake those boos for the sentiments of the
rank-and-file members of AARP. As evidenced by a
staff report prepared in September for Jim DeMint and a
Politico column the GOP Senator
wrote to highlight its findings, the people who pay membership
dues to the organization were overwhelming against ObamaCare even
as AARP pushed for its passage: “AARP endorsed ‘Obamacare,’ though
the organization’s call response logs indicate opponents
outnumbered supporters by more than 50 to 1.” In other words, AARP
ignored the obvious wishes of its own members. Thus DeMint
concludes, “AARP knows it can protect its financial interests by
aligning with Democrats, no matter what its members think.”
Unless, of course, it begins to look like the Democrats and
their President might get the bum’s rush in November. By the time
Mitt Romney had locked up the GOP presidential nomination and
actually began to pull ahead in some polls after choosing Paul Ryan
as his running mate, AARP began to put some distance itself and the
Obama administration. This is why, when the Obama re-election
campaign began running campaign ads invoking AARP “studies” showing
that the Ryan-Wyden plan would somehow lead to higher costs for
seniors, AARP issued the following
statement: “We were not aware of nor have any involvement with
this campaign ad. AARP is a nonpartisan organization and we do not
endorse political candidates.”
Conspicuously absent from this August statement, however, was
any attempt to refute the content of the ad, which contained a
number of brazen misrepresentations, including the claim that the
Republican plan was a “voucher” system and that it would raise
costs to seniors by “more than $6,000.” This reluctance to set the
record straight was also evident, after last week’s debate, when
AARP reiterated its ostensible policy of not endorsing political
candidates. The organization allegedly remains “focused on
providing voters with balanced information on where candidates
stand on the key issues, so they can make their own decisions on
Election Day,” yet failed to refute even the most preposterous of
Obama’s claims.
Still, reading between the lines of AARP’s post-debate
statement, it’s possible to detect some uneasiness on the part of
the organization’s executives. It’s unlikely that the reference to
the “You’ve Earned a Say” campaign is unconnected with the public
exposure of their utter indifference to the 50 to 1 opposition of
AARP’s members to Obamacare. If Obama and the Democrats continue to
be mugged by the ugly realities they have created, we’ll hear more
from AARP about nonpartisanship and to see its leadership stand
idly by as their erstwhile friends endure the beating. But it’s
probably too late. If the GOP gains control of the White House and
the Senate, the AARP will lose its cash cow after a well-deserved
roughing up.
