News & Blogs

Jon Decker and Phil Kerpen: AARP is just a for-profit insurance company

The AARP recently hosted a forum that included Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar ostensibly to discuss proposals to lower health care costs. The irony was unmissable. AARP — which until the 1990s was an acronym but now, appropriately, stands for nothing — is crusading for a Nancy Pelosi bill that allegedly combats “unfair pricing,” while AARP itself faces serious legal allegations that it is ripping off seniors by raising the health care costs…

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Ralph Nader: Wake Up AARP! A Message to Seniors: Medicare “Disadvantage” Is a Corporate Trap

While the Democratic presidential candidates are debating full Medicare for All, giant insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare are advertising to the elderly in an attempt to lure them from Traditional Medicare (TM) to the so-called Medicare Advantage (MA)—a corporate plan that UnitedHealthcare promotes to turn a profit at the expense of enrollees. Almost one third of all elderly over 65 are enrolled in these numerous, complex MA policies the government pays so much for monthly…

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Gerard Gianoli: AARP’s Interests Diverge From Its Members’

Ten thousand American baby boomers will turn 65 each day for the next 10 years. This is one of the biggest demographic transitions in U.S. history, and the resulting shifts in health-care spending will require intelligent policy. But a significant conflict of interest has led AARP, senior citizens’ strongest lobby, to put their well-being aside.

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Tom Greene: Is AARP representing seniors or insurers on drug costs?

From skyrocketing health insurance premiums, massive deductibles, high drug prices and other unexpected out of pocket costs, affordable health care is becoming increasingly out of reach for far too many Iowa patients and families. Add other calamities such as UnitedHealthcare’s recent walkout on hundreds of thousands of Iowa Medicaid recipients and the situation is even more troubling.

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Patricia Barnes: Once Again, Is AARP Advocating For Older Americans Or For Itself?

In 1996, the New York Times said the AARP’s credibility would be at stake if it proceeded with efforts to license its name to managed care plans for a fee because “the policies that might be best for the elderly are not always the policies that are best for the bank account of the A.A.R.P.” Undaunted, the AARP charged full speed ahead. Since then, the AARP’s for-profit financial juggernaut, AARP Services, Inc., has earned so many…

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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.

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