Former Ad Agency Exec Who Heads AARP Wrote Preface To Gingrich

[Noordam]

Buzzflash

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Seniors and Democrats were stunned when the AARP announced its support of the Trojan Horse Republican Medicare bill.

The AARP message board is burning up with rage against the AARP and William D. Novelli, former ad executive whiz kid, and current head of the AARP. Seniors appear to be canceling their memberships and calling for heads to roll at the AARP headquarters.

But Novelli, CEO of the AARP, defiantly dismissed membership outrage at his alliance with the Republicans, who see the proposed Medicare bill as the first step in the privatization and dismantling of the senior health insurance program.

..more at article....

[hedda_foil]

1. I'm not a current AARP member (quit awhile ago) but ...

I hope that DUers who ARE current members post this all over their forums! This cannot stand and AARP members will have fucking fits when they find out why they've been sold down the river.

[Noordam]

2. me bad me bad

http://community.aarp.org/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=rp-legislative&msg=1759.1&ctx=1

[flpoljunkie]

7. You are bad, Noordam! Great AARP post!

Take that, Novelli!

[madrchsod]

4. i put my two

cents worth in this afternoon..boy are people pissed-more votes for the democrats..do you think there is any republican senators getting slammed with messages? prob. got their phones of the hook.....

[baby_bear]

3. How did Novelli become the CEO of AARP?

I don't know much about AARP, but I always hear the right wing claim it is a leftist organization bordering on socialism, which has made me suspicious that it really is a right-wing-controlled organization.

Has it always been so? Has this been a big joke pulled on the nation's seniors? Is this the first time it has been exposed?

I've never understood why so many "seniors" sign up and join when they first get invited to based on their age (which is only 50 now, as I understand it, as the association defines it).

Any AARP members out there who can explain all this to me?

thanks
s_m

[burythehatchet]

5. This POS bill is going to be a major test

I hope the Dems realize that this fight CAN be won.

[Champion Jack]

6. Top Problems In The Medicare “Compromise” Overhaul Bill

Top Problems In The Medicare “Compromise” Overhaul Bill

1. Pushing Health Care Costs Higher For Older And Disabled Americans. The “compromise” bill allows drug companies to charge exorbitant prices, yet blocks the government from being able to negotiate better prices. The public interest group Consumer’s Union found that even after the drug deal is enacted, beneficiaries would pay more than they do today because of skyrocketing drug prices. This major victory for drug companies makes no sense for Medicare. Further, the proposal relies heavily on private health plans to deliver health-care services in the name of cost-saving. However, the key lesson of the "Medicare+Choice" experiment—where beneficiaries are given the option of using private health insurance—is that private health plans are not able to contain costs or offer reliable coverage. To deal with spiraling health-care costs, the bill contemplates capping government spending on Medicare, which is projected to shift additional costs to the people who use Medicare. The likely result is that many Americans will be hard-pressed to afford health-care coverage under Medicare.

2. Forcing Older And Disabled Americans Out Of Traditional Medicare And Into HMOs. Millions of Americans will see their traditional Medicare premiums increase substantially when the Medicare law gives a major financial shot in the arm to HMOs. If HMOs are brought in to Medicare, they will lure away people in relatively good health from traditional Medicare and force Medicare to charge more to deliver health care services to a predominantly sick population. Millions of people in traditional Medicare will have no choice but to join an HMO, give up the doctors they know and trust and forego access to health-care services when they visit with their children out of state.

3. Demanding That Six Million Low-Income Americans Pay More For Medications. The proposal eliminates Medicaid prescription drug coverage for the poorest older and disabled men and women and forces them to make do with more costly Medicare prescription drug coverage.

4. Giving More Than $200 Billion Over 10 Years To Private Industry. This “compromise” bill will give the pharmaceutical industry additional windfall profits estimated at $139 billion over eight years and the private health plans an additional $75 billion in taxpayer subsidies. To further support the pharmaceutical industry, it allows the FDA to block reimportation of cheaper drugs from other countries and gives the pharmaceutical companies an excuse to do away with their discount programs for older adults and people with disabilities with incomes under 200 percent of poverty.

5. Spending Seven Billion Dollars On Tax Breaks For Wealthy. The proposal creates a new tax shelter for wealthy Americans which both undermines employer coverage and adds to the number of uninsured by driving up the cost of health insurance. This seven billion dollar subsidy for the health savings accounts business is a boon for private industry.

6. Threatening The Quality Of Health Care For Older And Disabled Americans. While the proposal hands out money to private industry to provide health care, it fails to include adequate consumer protections for this care. For example, the “compromise” eases requirements for health-plan quality assurance. It also establishes an even more complex health care maze, while not providing standardized systems or adequate tools to allow people with Medicare to make informed health-care choices.

7. Ridding the Federal Government of Responsibility For Ensuring that Older and Disabled Americans Get the Care They Need. The “compromise” limits the government’s role in guaranteeing health care coverage to people with Medicare and makes them increasingly subject to the volatility of the private marketplace.

[Malva Zebrina]

8. Oh for Pete's sake

just put us all out on the ice.




In this illustration, the Nazis demonstrated that the daily cost to the state of maintaining one chronically ill person (5.5 marks) could be better spent supporting an entire healthy German family. Era: Before WWII

How stupid we all were to not become rich, but instead worked our butts off all of our lives just for an acre of land and a modest house sitting in the middle of it--enough to grow our children up to be good citizens and then to finally, when our bones are brittle, and or our fingers and knees and backs crooked and bent, when our breath is becoming short, our ankles edematous, and our muscles are atrophied and getting weak, to enjoy a little leisure and enjoyment in the things we could not enjoy when we were working.

Just set us out there--if we do not go out there ourselves voluntarily when we realize the futility of it all.

[baby_bear]

9. This is a very modern theory as well

John Graham, head of the White House Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (whew), has put forth a proposal to value the life of the elderly less than others when considering regulations such as those effecting work places and the environment.

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1385/

<snip>
OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), under the leadership of John Graham, has proposed new agency-wide guidance on cost-benefit analysis, which has emerged as the heart of the administration's regulatory decision-making. This proposed guidance, which is now open for public comment, promotes analytical methods to monetize human life that systematically bias the process against regulation aimed at preventing cancer or other diseases of old age, which have long latency periods.

Two separate, but connected, assumptions underlie this bias. First, a life saved today is worth more than a life saved tomorrow. And second, the elderly are worth less to society because they have fewer years left to live.

</snip>


My 80-year-old mother's life probably has a value of zip in John Graham's mental calculator. He has been waiting all his professional life to get into this position to influence environmental, OSHA and highway safety regulations to his point of cost/benefit view.

Be vigilant, folks! These guys are in the woodwork in the White House.

s_m