Early payoff? AARP got $18 million in stimulus dough

The so-called American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is aggressively backing the House health care reform bill, despite the fact that it would slash upwards of $500 billion from Medicare programs on which 40 million seniors depend. Now comes the news that AARP has already got its snout in the federal stimulus trough to the tune of $18 million.

Funny how these things work, isn't it?

Of course, this is only an early payoff to the folks who run the self-perpetuating AARP outfit. The real money will roll in after the bill becomes law, Medicare Advantage is cut to the bone, and the 13 million seniors currently enrolled in the popular Advantage programs have no choice but to buy Medigap policies, which conveniently AARP sells.

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Fed report: House bill's $500 billion in Medicare cuts will reduce benefits and endanger access to care for seniors

Seniors: One super-voting bloc politicians mess with at their peril

For months now, it's been clear that the road to "deficit neutral" health care reform is a bumpy, maybe even dangerous, one for seniors. Ironically, in their zeal to extend health insurance to the roughly 40 million people who don't have any, President Obama and many Democrats in Congress appear ready to make deep cuts in Medicare, a program that is on the short list of the signal domestic accomplishments of the Democratic Party over the past 80 years, alongside Social Security, labor rights, and civil rights. What the 45 million seniors and people with disabilities who depend on Medicare are going to think about this remains unclear, although it's hard to see why they would embrace it with resignation.

A new report from the non-partisan Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid, has now confirmed the $500 billion in cuts in the House health care bill that passed a week ago will reduce Medicare benefits and run a real risk of limiting seniors' access to care. From the Washington Post:

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending -- one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's health-care system -- would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.

Congress could intervene to avoid such an outcome, but "so doing would likely result in significantly smaller actual savings" than is currently projected, according to the analysis by the chief actuary for the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid. That would wipe out a big chunk of the financing for the health-care reform package, which is projected to cost $1.05 trillion over the next decade.

More generally, the report questions whether the country's network of doctors and hospitals would be able to cope with the effects of a reform package expected to add more than 30 million people to the ranks of the insured, many of them through Medicaid, the public health program for the poor.

In the face of greatly increased demand for services, providers are likely to charge higher fees or take patients with better-paying private insurance over Medicaid recipients, "exacerbating existing access problems" in that program, according to the report from Richard S. Foster of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

[snip]

In its most recent analysis of the House bill, the CBO noted that Medicare spending per beneficiary would have to grow at roughly half the rate it has over the past two decades to meet the measure's savings targets, a dramatic reduction that many budget and health policy experts consider unrealistic. [Emphasis added.]

Whatever bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid takes to the Senate floor this week will also have to rely on hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts to pay for it.

Most of the public debate about health care reform has focused on the issue of a public option and the overall cost, with the Medicare cuts usually mentioned only in passing. It wasn't long ago that more liberal Democrats were the fiercest defenders of of Medicare and Medicaid, as in 2007 when President Bush proposed cuts that were a fraction of those now approved by House Democrats. No more. Democrats want to pass a bill, so they are largely mum on this topic and talk only about generating "efficiencies" and tackling "abuses" in Medicare.

And the Republicans? Some Republicans may take it up as a talking point now and then, but the GOP's deep-seated objection to "entitlements" like Medicare and Medicaid eliminate them from serious contention as a defender of seniors in this case.

What about the supposed "seniors' lobby," AARP? It has thrown its support behind the House bill in a deal that will bring more customers to its lucrative insurance business.

So seniors are on their own. But here's the thing about that. Seniors -- and near-seniors -- are handily the most reliable group of voters. They may have to hobble on their canes to get to the polling place, but they do vote.

As early as last July, it was already noteworthy in many polls that opposition to health care reform was higher among seniors. That's still true -- but you ain't seen nothing yet. Assuming a bill that cuts $400-500 billion from Medicare is signed into law, the issue will no longer be hypothetical, or muddled by a constantly changing and confusing array of proposals, or hidden behind high-minded rhetoric and clever spin. When it becomes clear to seniors that their health insurance benefits actually have been reduced and that it's going to even harder to find a doctor who accepts Medicare patients (a growing number of physicians have already opted out of Medicare), anyone who voted for it is going to have a hard time convincing constituents over 60 that it's a good deal.

Anyway, it's not just about politics. What's so "progressive" about slashing health care benefits for tens of millions of older Americans -- a large majority of whom have low to moderate incomes -- to subsidize benefits for younger Americans, many of whom don't want insurance now and will resent being obligated to take on premium payments? Beats me.

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AARP stabs senior citizens in the back, endorses $400 billion of cuts in Medicare, so it can make more money selling insurance!

Video of AARP staffer telling "members" to take a flying leap last August

The so-called American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has endorsed the House health care bill in a move that stabs its millions of senior citizen members in the back. Why? So that AARP can sell more insurance policies -- its biggest source of revenue, that's why. From the Chicago-Tribune:

Why else would the nation's largest lobbying organization, sworn to protect the interests of senior citizens, watch silently as Congress plans to cut Medicare spending by $400 billion to pay for its health reform legislation? Could it be that the interests of seniors and AARP are not exactly aligned?

Let's follow the money. AARP takes in more than half of its $1.1 billion budget in royalty fees from health insurers and other vendors that market services with the organization's name. Medicare supplementary policies, called "Medigap" plans, make up the biggest share of this royalty revenue.

AARP has an interest in selling more, not fewer, Medigap plans, of course. But there is a competitor on the block.

A growing number of seniors are enrolling in a new form of Medicare coverage Medicare Advantage where they don't need Medigap.

[snip]

Congress' health reform bills would cut spending for Medicare Advantage by at least $150 billion. President Obama has singled out Medicare Advantage, saying it is a give-away to private insurance companies. But virtually all of the extra money goes back to seniors in the form of better benefits, so it's seniors who have the most to lose.

AARP is endorsing a bill that will deliver a huge blow to Medicare -- one that will lead over time to fewer doctors accepting Medicare, longer waits for seniors, and an inevitable decline in accessible quality care -- so that AARP can make more billions of dollars selling Medigap insurance.

Where does all that money AARP rakes in from insurance and other products it sells go? Beats me, although the pretense that AARP is a "lobby" for seniors can no longer be used as the rationale for its enormous budget. As they've proved time and again, older folks are well able to do their own lobbying by contacting their representatives and voting for candidates that fight for their interests. And seniors are very much aware of how much they stand to lose under health care "reform," as virtually every poll has shown for months.

AARP is not a membership organization in any sense. It's a self-appointed service entity -- sort of like AAA -- that peddles products with coupons and discounts for its "members." The "members" did not vote on AARP's endorsement of massive cuts in Medicare (does anyone really doubt the outcome if they had been given that opportunity?). As an AARP member, you don't even get to elect delegates to some representative body or the group's top leaders, like many unions and professional organizations. In fact, you can spend all day navigating AARP's elaborate website and you won't even find a mechanism to send the group an email to protest! (On the other hand, you can easily sign up for "action" to back the group's stand on health care.)

I think AARP has just managed to destroy its reputation as a non-partisan representative of the interests of senior citizens. The group's huge staff need not worry about losing their phony baloney jobs, though. They can always start selling memberships to 45 year olds. Why not 35 year olds, come to think of it? Those coupons and discounts might look just as good to people of any age.

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