Maybe you have seen or heard of the Obama administration’s TV ad with Andy Griffith telling seniors how wonderful Obamacare is going to be for them, and how it preserves Medicare. The ad is a fraud, and Andy Griffith has no idea what he is talking about—sounds more like Deputy Barney Fife than Sheriff Andy Taylor.
The ad is intended to cover up the awful truth confirmed in official reports released by the Obama administration last week. The Medicare payment rates for the doctors and hospitals serving seniors will be cut by 30 percent during the next three years. By 2019, those Medicare payment rates will be lower than under Medicaid, a program in which doctors already are refusing to treat new and sometimes old patients. Thus, under ObamaCare payment rates for Medicare will be only one third of what will be paid by private insurance and only half of what is paid by Medicaid, where as a result of low reimbursement rates the poor often can’t even find access to any care, let alone high quality care.
This pending health care crunch for old people is the result of Obamacare’s $575 billion in cuts to Medicare during the next 10 years ($2.9 trillion over the next 20 years). Indeed, the official report of the Medicare Board of Trustees released last week shows that Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) is ultimately cut by 60 percent; Part B (physician services) is cut by 43 percent.
If the government is not going to pay the doctors and hospitals for health care services provided to seniors under Medicare, then seniors are not going to get any where near the health care under Medicare they now rely on and expect. The Medicare Chief Actuary reports that even before these cuts occur already two-thirds of hospitals are losing money on Medicare patients. Health providers will either have to withdraw from serving Medicare patients, or eventually go into bankruptcy.
But you won’t hear any of this from AARP. Instead, AARP highlighted the administration’s propaganda line in an August 5 press release responding to last week’s reports saying, “The Medicare Trustees’ Report issued today contains some important good news. It finds the financial outlook for Medicare has been strengthened significantly as a result of legislative changes, increasing the solvency of the Trust Fund from 2017 until 2029.” AARP never explains that the so-called “trust fund” is a fraud and that the new-found solvency is a direct result of ObamaCare’s Medicare cuts.
Instead, AARP has been busy setting seniors up for the Obama administration’s Obama-Con propaganda ploy. AARP has been subtly building up Andy Griffith’s image in recent weeks. The July/August issue of the AARP Magazine, for example, features “Whistle If You Love Andy Griffith: As the Andy Griffith Show turns 50, America still finds comfort in its favorite small town sheriff.”
The Magazine also offers us the Andy Griffith Quiz. “Remember what Barney called Aunt Bee’s pickles?” the Magazine asks. On July 9, 2010, the AARP Magazine posted “Cooking with Aunt Bee: An Andy Griffith fan shares mouth watering recipes for biscuits, pancakes, and pickles.”
AARP is now offering us The Mayberry Days Sweepstakes: “Enter for a chance to win a two night trip plus tickets to the 21st Annual Mayberry Days to be held Thursday – Sunday, September 23-26, 2010 in Mount Airy, North Carolina.” This will be “an experience that brings AARP: The Magazine’s recent feature on The Andy Griffith Show to life,” AARP assures readers. Entry period runs June 25, 2010 thru September 8, 2010, the Magazine advises, just when the Andy Griffith Obamacare propaganda commercial is running.
This AARP PR for the Obama Administration is then picked up and run by small town newspapers across the country. For example, on July 30, the Tucson Citizen offered us “Retroflections: The Andy Griffith Show.” Author Tyler Woods writes,
“Today I was sitting outside watching the sunrise, enjoying the coolness of the air with a cup of coffee and my latest edition of AARP. I was wondering what the magazine had in store for me this month….One little advertisement got me…‘Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Andy Griffith Show and it got me thinking…’”
Woods adds, helpfully, “If you are over 50 then you grew up with the Andy Griffith Show. It aired from 1960-1968. The theme song is one of the most remembered theme songs of all times. Who hasn’t caught themselves doing that familiar whistle?”
Are you feeling manipulated yet? Out of what backroom meeting did this coordinated, media manipulation strategy arise?
Or how about this less-than-subtle, seed-planting article from the Napa County Times Herald reminding readers that no current TV show, “Come[s] close to what can be learned from The Andy Griffith Show, even 50 years later.
Joseph Goebbels call your office to learn how propaganda is really done. This coordinated Obama-AARP propaganda effort follows a year of AARP’s hiding the facts, misleading the public, and playing America’s seniors for fools regarding the Obama administration’s takeover of health care and its impacts on Medicare. The truth is recounted above, with more to come.
AARP is a propaganda front for the left wing of the Democrat Party and a tool of the Obama White House, when it is not feathering its own corporate nest selling out seniors in backroom deals with the White House. If you don’t understand that, then you too have been played for a fool.
Dr. Hunter is president of the Social Security Institute.