AARP Raises Premiums - Advocacy Clashes With Reality

Contrary to Democratic politician's promises when they jammed Obamacare through the Senate and Congress, claiming that when the public found out all that was in the bill they would start to support it, opposition is rising as the public becomes aware of what Washington Democrats actually passed and Obama signed into law. Caption & Image Credit: wakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com

AARP Raises Premiums - Advocacy Clashes With Reality

Truth has a funny way of dispelling the aggressive distortion of an advocacy point-of-view.

A classic case in point has popped up over at the insurance and liberal advocacy organization American association of retired persons, AARP. AARP is a non-profit organization which helps people above the age of 50 to lead a peaceful life both health and finance. Most famous of AARP programs is AARP insurance.

AARP is now telling its employees that insurance costs will rise by 8 percent to 13 percent next year, partly as a result of the ObamaCare law it supported.

This excerpted and edited from the Washington Times -

Obamacare spurs AARP to raise premiums
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar - Associated Press - 6:35 p.m., Thursday, November 4, 2010

AARP's endorsement helped secure passage of President Obama's health care overhaul. Now the seniors' lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise, partly as a result of the law.
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AARP added that it is changing co-payments and deductibles to avoid a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans that takes effect in 2018 under the law. Aerospace giant Boeing also has cited the tax in asking its workers to pay more. Shifting costs to employees lowers the value of a health care plan and acts like an escape hatch from the tax.

"Most plan co-pays and deductibles have been modified," Jennifer Hodges, AARP's director of compensation and benefits, wrote employees in an Oct. 25 e-mail. "Plan value changes were necessary not only from a cost-management standpoint, but also to ensure that AARP's plans fall below the threshold for high-cost group plans under health care reform."
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Ever since Barack Obama took the office as the 44th President of the United States, AARP endorsed the efforts of the Democrat political party in its efforts at healthcare reform. These efforts had little to do with improving a free market approach and everything to do with having the Government become the chief decider on what insurance will look like ... even if the Government has to become the "Single-Payer" in the insurance equation.

The chief reason AARP was an advocate on ObamaCare can be found where AARP makes their money ... in Medigap insurance coverage. Medigap plans are a cash cow for AARP and if people don't need them because they can enroll in Medicare Advantage plans, that's a revenue loss for AARP. Obamacare helps to do away with Medicare Advantage plans.

While the organization has some partnering arrangements with Medicare Advantage plans, they provide a fraction of the revenues to the organization that Medigap does.

Second, if Medicare's benefits are cut by $400 billion or more, seniors will have an ever greater need for Medigap coverage.

"There's an inherent conflict of interest," former AARP executive Marilyn Moon says of AARP's royalty arrangements. "They're ending up becoming very dependent on sources of income."

Tens of thousands of seniors have resigned from AARP, many of them cutting up their membership cards to protest the organization's promotion of health reform.

The new chief executive officer of AARP, Barry Rand, who was a strong supporter of President Obama during last year's presidential campaign, says AARP is not protesting the Medicare cuts because reducing waste and fraud in Medicare will make the program stronger over the long term.

The 40 million-strong AARP represents people 50 and older, including retirees on Medicare and Social Security. Its endorsement of President Barack Obama's health bill came at a critical time last year, just days before a vote on the House floor.

"The [insurance rate]impact on [our]AARP employees is not a factor at all in our policy-making, which is directed at the impact on our membership and on all older Americans," said said David Certner, AARP legislative affairs director.

One has to ask ... how many 50 years of age and older employees does AARP actually have?

We , at MAXINE, believe - AARP ... the American association of retired persons, is less about protecting the interests of retired persons than it is at protecting its cash cows in the insurance business.