Politics

AARP bashes Obama for using it to promote himself in debate

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
Font Size:

DENVER – The AARP ripped President Barack Obama for using the organization’s name to support himself politically during Wednesday evening’s presidential debate.

“While we respect the rights of each campaign to make its case to voters, AARP has never consented to the use of its name by any candidate or political campaign,” AARP vice president John Hishta said in a statement immediately after the debate. “AARP is a nonpartisan organization, and we do not endorse political candidates nor coordinate with any candidate or political party.”

The president mentioned AARP to support his attack on Romney’s Medicare plan.

“And then, what you’ve got is folks like my grandmother at the mercy of the private insurance system precisely at the time when they are most in need of decent health care,” Obama said. “So, I don’t think vouchers are the right way to go. And this is not my own – only my opinion. AARP thinks that the – the savings that we obtained from Medicare bolster the system, lengthen the Medicare trust fund by eight years. Benefits were not affected at all. “

AARP endorsed Obamacare in what South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint called a move that “sells out seniors.” DeMint argued in a recent op-ed that AARP “poses as a disinterested senior advocate, [but] functions as an insurance conglomerate, with a liberal lobbying arm on the side.”

“AARP depends on profits, royalties and commissions to make up more than 50 percent of its annual revenues,” DeMint wrote. “Membership dues from seniors account for only about 20 percent. The sums involved aren’t chump change: AARP’s $458 million in health insurance revenue in 2011 would rank it as the nation’s sixth most profitable health insurer.”

AARP responded that DeMint simply “rehashes a litany of attacks on AARP as familiar as they are untrue.”

“For more than 50 years, AARP has been singularly driven in our work to improve the lives of our members and all older Americans,” AARP senior vice president Jeffrey Davis wrote in an op-ed responding to DeMint’s. “We make policy decisions based on what we believe will be in the best interests of Americans over age 50. This simple truth was difficult for some on the political left to accept when we supported the creation of a Medicare prescription drug benefit, and it has proved difficult for some on the right to accept as our motivation for endorsing the Affordable Care Act.”

DeMint argued that “AARP’s policy positions just happen to coincide with its financial interests.”

“‘Obamacare,’ which AARP lobbied heavily for, could yield the group windfall profits of more than $1 billion over the next decade by forcing seniors off Medicare Advantage plans and into Medigap supplemental coverage,” DeMint wrote. “Conversely, AARP engaged in a secret lobbying campaign to block Medigap reforms last year that by one estimate would have saved nearly 80 percent of seniors an average of $415 per year – but cost AARP billions in profits.”

“[U]nfortunately, the health reform law didn’t address the Medigap market, which is regulated separately from the under-65 private market,” Davis responded. “AARP believes more needs to be done to ensure seniors are getting the best value for their dollar, and that’s why we continue to work with Congress to improve the Medigap marketplace for seniors.”

Even so, an early draft version of Obamacare legislation obtained by TheDC shows legislators were trying to go after Medigap, but that section was removed from the legislation before it was officially introduced. And, as TheDC has reported, several attempts at bipartisan Medigap reform that AARP publicly said it supports haven’t gone anywhere on Capitol Hill since Obamacare passed.

Follow Matthew on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel