AARP Losing Members in Droves

Couldn’t happen to a better organization.

Look out AARP. There’s a new senior advocacy group on the block offering a conservative alternative to seniors.

The Atlanta-based American Seniors Association (ASA), which is opposed to President Obama’s health care plan, is trying to capitalize on growing public dissatisfaction with the AARP.

About 60,000 seniors have quit AARP since July 1 due to the group’s support for health care reform, a spokesman for the organization said this week.

AARP is running ads to support a health care overhaul and hosted Obama at an online forum recently to promote his agenda to AARP members. But the group has not endorsed a specific bill and says it won’t support a plan that reduces Medicare benefits.

Spokesman Drew Nannis told The Associated Press it wasn’t unusual for the powerful, 40 million-strong senior citizens’ lobby to shed members in droves when advocating for a controversial issue.

Nannis said the group loses some 300,000 members a month but he couldn’t say how many more members had quit for other reasons in that time period. He said AARP gained some 400,000 new members during the same period and that 1.5 million members renewed their membership.

But ASA is swooping in to pick up the disaffected seniors.

The group is offering any senior that sends in a torn AARP card a special deal that provides them with a two-year membership for the price of one year.

Founded in 2005 as the National Association of Senior Concerns by retired business executive Jerry Barton, a longtime supporter of conservative values and causes, the group later changed its name to the American Seniors Association.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/18/aarp-losing-members-health-care-faces-challenge-grassroots-senior-advocacy/

The year I turned 50 (2007) I began receiving AARP membership offers in the mail.  I sent them back with “Not only NO, but HELL NO”.

First of all, 50 years of age does not constitute “senior citizen”, and secondly, I would never join AARP due to its socialist leanings.  They’ve supported leftwing agendas for years. AARP is like a union in that it takes your money and uses it without your consent, for purposes to which you would never agree.

Said one former member:

I have very little control over the government using my own money against me but I have total control when a special interest political action committee that I voluntarily joined uses my money against me.
http://www.marktalk.com/blog/archives/6336

Well, the first part of that statement is changing, thanks to Americans fed up with out of control, irresponsible, government taxation and spending.
85% of the American people are satisfied with their healthcare choices. Obama wants to decimate a functioning healthcare system by forcing them to share a government mandated program along with an additional 47  million people.

By the way, ObamaCare would include 12-20 million illegal aliens, who have no right to be in this country, let alone receive healthcare paid for by American citizens.

Most AARP members oppose ObamaCare, yet the AARP’s lobbying staff is working for the White House proposal and cooperating with congressional Democrats.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Tripping-up-AARP_s-dance-with-Pelosi-and-the-Democrats-8068565-52520252.html

The AARP wants to extend its power from a Democrat lobbying group to being a wing of the ObamaCare structure.

Remember all those “Health Action Now” signs hoisted by ObamaCare supporters at his staged townhalls?

During the current debate, AARP has funded ads pushing for health care legislation and hosted town-hall style events throughout the country. It has set up a website called “Health Action Now,” which urges visitors to sign a petition, imploring, “President Obama has promised health reform before the end of the year — but we need to make sure that Congress follows through.” The site even has a feature in which users enter their phone number, wait for their phone to ring, and are automatically connected to their member of Congress, so that they can deliver AARP’s message that “the time for action is now.”

Of course, with one party controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, “action now” effectively means supporting Democratic legislation.

……Though AARP bills itself as nonpartisan, its support for the current administration’s policies stands in stark contrast to the aggressive campaign it waged to help kill President Bush’s drive to reform Social Security in 2005.  AARP’s backing of Obama’s health care agenda has not been deterred even though he has proposed paying for universal health care, in part, with $622 billion in Medicare cuts over 10 years.

(Barry) Rand, (chief executive officer of AARP) who took the helm at AARP in March, was a strong backer of Obama in last year’s election, having contributed a total of $8,900 to the campaign’s various committees. 
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/22/aarps-got-their-back/

Turns out that the senior citizens in this country don’t like the kind of “care” Obama wants to offer, with the AARP’s blessing.

Dick Morris discusses the proposed government option’s effect on the elderly:

Specifically, his decisions to (1) pay for reform with vast cuts in the Medicare budget and (2) grant insurance coverage to 50 million new people, vastly boosting demand without increasing the supply of doctors, nurses or other care providers.

Whether or not he admits it even to himself, Obama’s talk of cutting “inefficiencies” and reducing costs translates to less care, of lower quality, for the elderly. Every existing national health system finds ways to deny state-of-the-art medications and necessary surgical procedures to countless patients, and ObamaCare has the nascent mechanisms to do the same. With the limited options that Obama’s vision would leave them, many will find that “end of life counseling” necessary and even welcome.

“Reform” would cut care to the elderly in several ways:

* Slash hundreds of billions from Medicare spending, largely by lowering reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals for patient care.

If a hospital gets less money for each MRI, it will do fewer of them. If a surgeon gets paid less for a heart bypass on a Medicare patient, he’ll perform them more rarely. These facts of the marketplace are not only inevitable consequences of Obama’s cuts but are also its intended consequence. Without them, his savings will prove illusory.

* Expanding the patient load by extending full coverage to 50 million Americans (including such “Americans” as illegal immigrants) without boosting the supply of care will force rationing decisions on harried and overworked doctors and hospitals.

People with insurance use a lot more health-care resources — so today’s facilities and personnel will have to cope with the increased workload. Busy surgeons will have to decide who would benefit most from their treatment — de facto rationing. The elderly will, inevitably, be the losers.

* The Federal Health Board, established by this legislation, will be charged with collecting data on various forms of treatment for different conditions to assess which are the most effective and efficient. While the bills don’t force providers to obey the board’s “guidance,” its recommendations will still wind up setting the standards and protocols for care systemwide.

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/08/18/its-all-a-death-panel-the-truth-about-obamacare/

Grandma knows what’s in store if Obama and the Democrats get their way, and she’s not about to be thrown under the AARP bus.