US

AARP partner crafted Obama ‘keep your plan’ lie

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
Font Size:

The retired persons advocacy group AARP partners with the organization that helped craft President Obama’s “you can keep your plan” lie.

AARP, founded in 1958, is generating criticism from many of its members for heavily promoting Obamacare, which helps AARP’s bottom line to the tune of more than $1 billion. One legendary television personality told The Daily Caller that disgruntled members should leave the organization and join his rival group.

AARP partners with a small, unknown group called the Herndon Alliance, which has been described as “the messaging arm of a vast center-left infrastructure pushing health care reform.” AARP and Herndon’s co-founders participated in weekly conference calls during the run-up to the passage of Obamacare.

President Obama’s talking point that Americans could keep their “choice” of doctors and insurance plans was a Herndon strategy, developed by the end of Obama’s first 100 days in office. Herndon was in contact with then-Senator Obama during the 2008 campaign, discussing strategies to sell health care reform to demographic groups including “Marginalized Middle Agers” and “Mobile Materialists.”

“The Herndon Alliance was one of many broad stakeholder groups and coalitions – most notably Divided We Fail, which we led with partners like the Business Roundtable and NFIB – we worked with during the health reform process.  These stakeholder groups frequently include organizations representing hospitals, physicians, employers, workers, consumers and health advocates,” AARP spokesperson Allyson Funk told TheDC.

AARP’s heavy promotion of Obamacare, including creating the informational website HealthLawAnswers.org and holding informational events and health fairs, has alienated many seniors who hold membership in the organization.

“Love it or hate it, we want to make sure that people have the information they need to make informed decisions,” Nicole Duritz, AARP Vice President for Health Education and Outreach, told TheDC.

AARP began partnering with the left-wing California Endowment, a foundation with close ties to the Obama White House and liberal billionaire George Soros and the Obama White House, in mid-October to “raise awareness about Obamacare” and “get Californians to enroll in health coverage.”

“Yes, there are some people who in those calls…the opinions go both ways. So we’re definitely reaching both sides,” said a spokesperson for AARP California, referring to telephone town halls the group has conducted with members on Obamacare. The spokesperson added that “the targeting we’re doing here in California is for the Hispanic population because they comprise 60 percent of the uninsured.”

AARP, which is also a major health insurer that sells “Medigap” plans to Medicare beneficiaries to cover things that Medicare does not provide, has a financial incentive to push Obamacare.

AARP saved $1.8 billion by successfully pushing to keep Medigap reform out of the final draft of Obamacare. AARP also benefits from cuts in Medicare Advantage, which will force more seniors to enroll in traditional Medicare and supplement it with Medigap plans, according to health policy expert Avik Roy.

AARP coordinated closely with the Obama White House during the push to pass Obamacare, even helping to craft Obama’s talking points and pledging its devotion to “the cause,” according to previously published emails.

“AARP I believe, from my point of view, is basically responsible for Obamacare. You start to ask yourself, why would they be so in the tank? What do they have to gain by it? It was all about Medigap,” former Wheel of Fortune and Love Connection host Chuck Woolery told TheDC. “You can hear Obama today saying it’s the insurance companies’ fault but he will never say anything bad about AARP.”

Woolery, a conservative activist, supporter of congressional term limits and former member of the psychedelic pop duo The Avant-Garde, is the spokesman for Generation America, a conservative-leaning alternative to AARP.

“When they [AARP] polled their members on Obamacare, it was huge” negative reaction, Woolery said. “I don’t think they even wanted to publish that number. It was bad. It was like publishing the first day of Obamacare enrollment numbers.”

“I’m not naive. I understand it’s about money, not about representing the people. But I think they have a certain moral obligation” to represent seniors, Woolery said. “Their political obligation and money obligation trumps their moral obligation.”

Follow Patrick 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