Posted on 11/30/2003 1:50:56 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Here's the deal: If you're over 50, for just $12.50 a year, AARP will give you a magazine and newsletter subscription, as well as allow you to "receive discounts on car rentals, lodging, cruises" and a host of other wonderful things. And at the same time, it will argue for your most vital political interests in Washington. You're a Republican? Democrat? Anarchist? It doesn't matter; it knows what you want. At AARP, one lobby fits all.
The character of the group formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons is once again of significant interest after AARP on Oct. 14 strongly endorsed the largely Republican-written $400 billion Medicare prescription drug bill.
After all, AARP is the second-largest membership organization in the United States after the Catholic Church, claiming more than 35 million members. Who can stand in the way of that juggernaut? The answer: any self-respecting Congress member who uses common sense and does a little homework.
AARP was founded in 1958 by retired California high school principal Ethel Percy Andrus for the primary purpose of selling health insurance to the elderly. Andrus eventually added popular discounts on hotel and motel stays, car rentals and airlines. The nonprofit AARP amassed $636 million in revenue last year, with travel discounts remaining the biggest draw for soliciting and retaining members. "AARP is a group of people bound together only by a common love of travel discounts," former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., used to say. He wasn't far off.
It was in the 1960s that the organization began taking major positions on legislation. But other than being over 50 and sharing a common desire for AARP discounts, nothing knits together the politically and generationally diverse dues-paying membership of about 24 million. (AARP inflates its total by 11 million or so by giving spouses free memberships.)
Most of the members neither know the positions that AARP's paid Washington lobbyists push nor fully understand that simply paying dues for discounts gives AARP the right to use their names in vain.
AARP's CEO, William Novelli, doesn't let their ignorance of his staff's "representation" of them deter him from using the sheer force of membership numbers to bully Congress.
Even after thousands of members ast week recently phoned, wrote letters and sent angry e-mails about AARP's supporting the Medicare bill to the group's swank $130 million, 10-story headquarters in Washington, Novelli was unrepentant about his claims to speak for them. Appearing on a CNBC Capital Report television show, Tuesday evening,he acknowledged the first signs of membership rebellion, then added: "I really feel unfazed by it. I think we're doing the right thing."
Novelli knows from AARP's confidential historical records that he can dismiss the membership uprising sure to follow in the coming months because the organization has weathered such storms without apology before.
In 1994, AARP's Washington policy people practically salivated at the prospect of passing Bill and Hillary Clinton's health care reform, only to see it wither on the congressional vine. When then-House Majority Whip Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., co-sponsored a bill attempting to resurrect the Clinton initiative, AARP's board of directors endorsed it. Within 48 hours, AARP headquarters received 28,000 mostly hostile calls, with another 21,000 members unable to get through the jammed phone lines. An internal AARP study found that of 133,788 people who contacted them about the endorsement, only 318 specifically supported AARP's position.
No matter, the study's conclusion implied, a million orremove pi 0 and pi 8 if paragraph indent is needed on first text line
Continued from Page 1C.
follow in the coming months because the organization has weathered such storms without apology before.
In 1994, AARP's Washington policy people practically salivated at the prospect of passing Bill and Hillary Clinton's health care reform, only to see it wither on the congressional vine. When then-House Majority Whip Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., co-sponsored a bill attempting to resurrect the Clinton initiative, AARP's board of directors endorsed it. Within 48 hours, AARP headquarters received 28,000 mostly hostile calls, with another 21,000 members unable to get through the jammed phone lines. An internal AARP study found that of 133,788 people who contacted them about the endorsement, only 318 specifically supported AARP's position.
No matter, the study's conclusion implied, a million or more members might be lost but old folks had a tendency to forget, which would work in AARP's favor.
"The relevance of this issue may diminish with time. That is, for members coming up for renewal at a future date, their recall and importance of the issue may not be as high," the study said.
A few years later, George H.W. Bush practically sneered when the subject of Washington AARP leadership came up in a talk with me. When he opposed their positions, the former president recalled, "They'd be all over me like ugly on an ape. They were formidable."
But what most infuriated the elder Bush was that they were illegitimate "self-appointed" representatives who became "the voice of whatever the hell they wanted" -- whether the membership wanted it or not.
The first President Bush had reasons for some harsh feelings because, despite claims of "nonpartisanship," most of AARP's positions after legislative policy director John Rother was hired in 1984 were of a largely liberal Democrat bent.
When the Democratic leadership and most of the Democratic presidential candidates heatedly denounced AARP's support of the Republican Medicare bill, it was with the shock and bitterness of friends betrayed.
Why would AARP, traditionally aligned with the Democrats, jump ship on this bill? AARP probably supported the measure because Rother -- still in charge of AARP's legislative brain trust -- couldn't pass up the $400 billion on the table for seniors. (Some critics say AARP has a conflict of interest in that it receives millions for insurance sold under its name and arguably could profit under a new Medicare drug bill.)
After criticism of its endorsement of the drug bill surfaced, AARP did a quick poll among "a nationally representative sample of 494" of its 35 million members and found 75 percent supported the proposed Medicare legislation. There was a catch, however: Only 10 of those polled -- 2 percent -- "were very familiar with the specifics of the plan." How could they be? Or how could the AARP board be, for that matter?
Certainly no one can yet accurately predict all the future ramifications (or true taxpayer costs) of this complex Medicare prescription drug expansion legislation.
Regardless of where you stand on this proposed act, AARP has no business doing unauthorized lobbying for its membership. Its chimerical lobby wholeheartedly represents only what a few paid staff leaders decide is best for all older Americans.
If anything, those heartened by the endorsement of the moderate Republican-oriented bill should be aware that in the past two decades AARP has never once had a clear victory on any major controversial health care legislation. Though it has often been described as the fearsome "800-pound gorilla" of lobbies, it has proved adept at slipping on its own big banana peel.
Van Atta, based in Washington, D.C., is the author of Trust Betrayed: Inside the AARP.
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Nothing wrong with voters lobbying Congress. The real problem is how the media reports on these groups. For example the NEA is the number one Democratic Party campaign contributor (money and muscle) and the media always gets it in that they are for the children not that they are for the Left. No other union gets this kind of pass. The AARP was given special status too. I guess the bloom is off the rose.
The bill represents the most sweeping change to Medicare in the program's 38-year history. Depending on how it plays out, it could alter the nation's political landscape by giving Republicans a major stake in an issue Democrats have claimed ownership of for decades.
More broadly, it could wind up reshaping the political allegiance of one of the most potent voting groups in America - one that, almost since the advent of Medicare, Social Security, and other federal entitlement programs, has been a solid Democratic constituency.
"If the Democrats don't win among seniors, they don't win the election, pure and simple," says Glen Bolger, a GOP pollster. "Democrats are gambling that this is a law that seniors ultimately won't like, and that they'll take it out on the supporters of it. But in gambling on that, they're also running the risk that seniors will say, 'Look, we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good - and this is a good bill.' "
Certainly, how the issue plays out will depend in part on the practical impact of the bill as it takes effect over the course of the next year and beyond. Some seniors may be dismayed to learn that the bulk of the benefit won't take effect until 2006, and Democrats argue the measure could backfire, causing some seniors to lose their current drug coverage, and raising premiums for others. Over the long term, Democrats say the bill will endanger Medicare overall by putting it into competition with private insurers.
But Republicans and some neutral observers say that while the bill may be imperfect, for many seniors the simple fact that Congress has finally passed something, after years of promises, constitutes a victory. And if the new drug benefit increases Mr. Bush's support among seniors by even a small margin, it could significantly bolster his chances of reelection.
Neither party is underestimating the importance of the senior vote, which often plays a critical role in elections, since older voters have a higher and more reliable turnout rate than any other group.
"They're the tried and true backbone of the electorate," says Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida, and author of "Targeting Senior Voters." "They will show up no matter what."
The shifting senior vote
And while seniors once tilted decidedly Democratic, they have evolved in recent years into one of the most hotly contested swing votes in the nation.
Much of the shift is simply generational: The oldest seniors, who were shaped by the FDR years and tend to be more dependent on government entitlements, still lean Democratic. But those under 70 are more likely to have spent their formative years under Eisenhower. They tend to be wealthier, and are often willing to align themselves with the GOP.
In the 2000 election, 47 percent of people over 60 voted Republican, compared with 44 percent in 1996. In the 2002 midterm elections, Republicans won the senior vote by five points. Significantly, several top swing states being targeted in 2004 by both parties - such as Florida and Pennsylvania - also have high concentrations of older voters, which could give them even more sway in the outcome.
To some extent, Professor MacManus says, the senior vote increasingly resembles that of the nation at large. "The electorate is divided - and that division holds true among seniors as well, up to around age 70," she says.
Indeed, early reactions of senior voters to the bill often seem to reflect party affiliation more than anything else. In Green Valley, Ariz., a retirement community south of Tucson, for instance, sentiment is clearly mixed. Republican Ray Greeley believes his party is doing the right thing. "I don't think retirees would have it as good today under Clinton," he says. "We need to change the Medicare system one way or another, and I think Bush will leave it in good shape."
But Democrat Sandra Stone is worried. "I think the Republicans are trying to privatize something that doesn't need to be privatized," says the retired high school teacher. "The Democrats are at least trying to keep Medicare going."
Pocketbook may drive politics
Still, the bottom line may ultimately trump party loyalty, if seniors wind up getting some relief on their prescription drug bill. Among many older voters, the prevailing sentiment is: "Politicians can argue about the minutiae and the long-term consequences and everything, but we want relief and we want it now," says MacManus.
Aside from their feelings about the details of the bill, many Democrats and Republicans agree that something had to be done, given the escalating cost of prescription drugs. In Green Valley, Democrat Ellie Kurtz says insurance from her husband's former employer covers the cost of prescriptions, but acknowledges not everyone has that advantage.
"We're lucky," she says. "It's terrible for a lot of people, many of them paying $500 or more at the pharmacy every month."
At the sprawling senior center in Garner, N.C., residents had so many concerns about the bill that they sent a letter to Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R). Director Torrey Blackmar, who spends hours helping seniors fill out Medicare and Medicaid forms, believes that the benefit will prove confusing. "A lot of people are going to think they're covered, and find out they're not," she says.
Despite the bill's flaws, Ms. Blackmar adds that's it's "probably a good thing" overall. Sidney Jordan, a resident at the center who complains that the Democratic Party "left me behind a long time ago," says Republicans should get credit for having taken action - something Democrats didn't do when they were in power. "This is something Democrats have been talking about for a long time, but now the Republicans are the ones who approved it," he says. "At the very least, it's a step in the right direction."
Yet others are still withholding judgment. Retired state worker George Smith, who's filling up his Ford Ranger in the nearby town of Clayton, believes the benefit may ultimately prove disappointing. Although he agrees Republicans will get "a lot of mileage" out of the measure, he notes that with drug prices rising by as much as 15 percent a year, the full value of the benefits will have decreased substantially by the time they take effect in 2006. And he deems the overall $400 billion price tag too high for a country "that's already broke." [End]
This is a clear case of apeism.
Beware the intentions of interested parties. AARP is interested in growing their membership, and takes positions that augment that membership. Frankly, AAA does a better job of providing services to seniors, and confines their lobbying only to technical questions of legal applications, not in arguing ideology, which is clearly the case in supporting expansion of Medicare entitlements.
The prescription drug provisions of this most recent legislation are distressing in the extreme. Either it is not enough, or far too much. The Medical Savings Account, in conjunction with catastrophic coverage for extraordinary medical expenses is one of the better provisions written into the bill, and perhaps if something could be included that extended coverage of the cost of drugs as part of the MSA, with similar catastrophic coverage as the costs reached a threshhold, may be an alternative to be considered.
The Democrats see this looming on the horizon. Good Lord! The electorate have control over some of their money. There goes a chunk of our political power.
This group (AARP) is obviously heavily populated with liberal democrats. They throw thier weight around just as much as unions, trial lawyers, Hollywood, etc. Now the Left likes to suggest that R's have corporate America in their back pocket. But the reality is that corporate campaign contributions tend to be about evenly divided between the parties. Heck, the right can't even lay claim to the so-called "radical Christian right" for votes, since only about half of those bother to vote (on a good day).
That's it!
End of story
One small exception is when the Teamsters supported drilling in the Artic, and then we saw these same kind of articles against them.
In 1992, however, the Teamsters abandoned Bush and joined the AFL-CIO - of which it is the largest member - in endorsing Democrat Bill Clinton. In 1996, the union did not endorse President Clinton, but also rejected the GOP candidate, Bob Dole, because of his ties to corporate interests. ***Souce April 2000
This hit piece on the AARP was placed on the top half, front page, of the Editorial section. This is just another example of why I cancelled my subscription over a year ago. The Houston Chronicle is nothing more than Liberal, Democrat agenda supporting, ass-wiping material!
...my wife brought one home while shopping Sat., she knows I miss my Sunday comics & sports.
Virtual saints!
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