AARP raises its voice in health care debate

Updated 27m ago
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The AARP, which has lost tens of thousands of members over its support for efforts to revamp the health care system, is preparing a post-Labor Day blitz to try to cast itself as a politically impartial advocate on health care issues.

"To be clear: AARP has not endorsed any comprehensive health care reform bill — but we are fighting for a solution that improves health care for our members," the group's CEO, Barry Rand, and president, Jennie Chin Hansen, wrote to members on Tuesday.

The effort gears up next week, when members of Congress — some of them surprised by voter anger expressed at town-hall-style meetings last month — return to the nation's capital to resume the debate over how to lower health care costs and provide insurance coverage for the millions who go without.

Since July 1, many of the 60,000 AARP members who have quit over concerns about proposals to change the health care system said they were worried it could lead to cuts in Medicare. Although AARP, the senior citizens lobbying group formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, has not endorsed any specific plan, its general support for a system change left many members with the impression that it backs the Democrats' legislation.

The resignations surprised leaders of the 40-million-member organization, even though it signed up 140,000 new members during the same period.

"The last thing I want is for members to feel we're not representing them anymore," says Lori Parham, AARP's Florida director.

AARP's new national campaign will include:

• A post-Labor Day direct-mail blast — 8 million letters will be sent — addressing concerns about health care and Medicare.

• Release of the September AARP Bulletin, the group's monthly magazine, sent to all members, with a cover story debunking health care myths.

• Town hall meetings and tele-town halls to address seniors' concerns about health care and the changes the White House and Congress are considering.

• National TV and Web ads. A multimillion-dollar ad campaign, which started in mid-August, will continue through Sept. 14, and plans are underway for a second set of ads to run this fall.

AARP hopes to hang on to members like Ted Campbell, head of the Republican Club at the Greenspring retirement community in Springfield, Va. A retired engineer and contracting director, Campbell says many of his friends dropped their AARP memberships and he may quit, too.

AARP "most definitely should be neutral" in the health care debate, says Campbell, 80. "I can see that they're going Democratic, very much so. It's getting more and more political. They talk about bipartisanship, but you don't see it much."

Campbell's big worry: "rationing of treatments. It sounds to me like, based on age, they're going to determine whether you get treatment or not. I don't think that's the way to control health care costs."

In a letter to the AARP leadership last week, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele urged the group to reject "the Democrats' government-run health care experiment and the consequences it would have on seniors."

Rand and Hansen said they will work with both parties and urged their members to reject the "misinformation and fear-mongering in the debate."

Edward Coyle of the 4-million-member Alliance for Retired Americans says seniors groups "have not done as good a job as we might have talking to seniors about the real issues. …We were taken aback earlier in the summer" when town hall meetings became shouting matches.

AARP's legislative director, David Certner, says the kinds of concerns seniors are raising now about rationing and cuts to their benefits are far different from those seniors have voiced for the past several years — concerns that prompted AARP to endorse plans for healthcare system changes.

Those concerns, he says, were about the high cost of health care, the difficulty getting insurance for those between 50 and 64 years old who don't yet qualify for Medicare and the high cost of prescription drugs, particularly when seniors fall into the infamous "donut hole" gap in the Medicare drug benefit where they have to pay the entire cost of their prescriptions.

"There's clearly been an effort to scare people," says Certner, referring to incorrect warnings issued by some Republicans, including former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, of "death panels" that would cut off care for the elderly. "We've been spending a lot of time trying to dispel the myths. I think it has derailed the debate."

Jim Kessler of Third Way, a progressive think tank in Washington, says AARP must be "pro-reform without being partisan."

Seniors are confused and vulnerable, he says, and they "need to see (AARP) as an honest broker in this debate, the place where they will get the most accurate information."

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