Fiscal Tax Blog

AARP

Foreign Price Controls Will Hurt Seniors

Washington politicians and bureaucrats on both sides of the aisle have recently proposed misguided policies that would impose foreign price controls on medicines in the U.S. These proposals would arbitrarily fix the cost of medications that American seniors rely on to prices set by bureaucrats in other countries with socialized health care systems. Throughout history and around the world, price controls have consistently had disastrous consequences. Especially for seniors, price controls will reduce access to…

AARP Corporate Partners

AARP Aims to Profit from the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit many industries especially hard – and the news media is no exception. Thousands of reporters have been laid off, furloughed, or had their salaries cut and dozens of publications have closed for good. Despite the economic difficulties threatening their very existence, media outlets and news organizations across the country dropped their paywalls and made coronavirus coverage available for free to non-subscribers. Explaining the move to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The…

AARP Corporate Partners

AARP claims they don’t need to act with ‘interest of members in mind’

The social media giant Facebook recently started curating content in its “Coronavirus Information Center” in order to provide Americans with the latest news on COVID-19 from reputable sources. But since the purpose of the platform is to showcase content from its most trusted providers, we have a question —Why is AARP included? AARP is far from a reliable source of information, and by their own admission, they are not accountable to seniors. As we previously wrote:…

AARP

UnitedHealth Group and AARP Prosper as Seniors Suffer

Americans continue to endure an unprecedented amount of pain and suffering—physically and financially. According to the latest statistics, there have been over 63,000 COVID-19 related deaths to date, with seniors being the most at-risk demographic. Stay-at-home orders from governors have brought our consumer economy to a standstill, forcing over 30 million Americans out of work and seeking unemployment benefits. Yet, while seniors pass away at alarming rates and Americans file for unemployment, Washington, D.C.’s power…

AARP

Phil Kerpen: UNMASKING UNITEDHEALTH FRONT GROUP AARP

For years the major health care policy debates in Washington and state capitals have been distorted by the fact that one of America’s best known and trusted advocacy organizations, AARP, has functioned largely as a lobbying and PR front for the country’s biggest health insurer, UnitedHealth. Yet elected officials continue to see and hear their advocacy messages as representing millions of seniors – who are famously reliable voters – with a serious corrosive impact on…

AARP Corporate Partners

Ashley Herzog: The Trump Administration Wants Lower Drug Prices. AARP Does Not.

AARP claims to represent the interests of senior citizens across the United States, so watching the non-profit advocate for keeping prescription drug prices high has been an odd spectacle indeed. David Certner, AARP’s legislative policy director, recently released a letter urging Health and Human Services (HHS) to keep a special-interest loophole in the Anti-Kickback Statute, a law passed by Congress in 1972 to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse within the healthcare industry.

AARP Corporate Partners

Evie Fordham: The Trump Administration Says This Proposal Will Help Seniors Afford Their Drugs. AARP Says Not So Fast.

Critics of America’s current drug payment system say middlemen are jacking up prices and question why AARP, which is tied to a middleman organization, opposes a Trump administration proposal that could help seniors. Right now, these middleman organizations, called pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), are protected by safe harbor provisions from certain parts of the Anti-Kickback Statute.

AARP Corporate Partners

Matthew Boyle: Amid Data Privacy Concerns, AARP Sweetheart Deals with Federal Government Face Renewed Scrutiny

President Donald Trump’s administration has provided the nonprofit foundation arm of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) with more than $111 million in a variety of taxpayer-funded grants and contracts. But the gravy train may be coming to a stop soon amid concerns over not just AARP’s work against Trump’s agenda on major big-picture policy items such as healthcare and taxes but also over data privacy concerns for seniors who have trusted the organization…