AARP's Tough Selling Job (AARP's/Bush's credibility remains at stake)

[papau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3766-2004Mar18.html

AARP's Tough Selling Job (AARP's/Bush's credibility remains at stake)

By David S. Broder
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A31


<snip>Many Democrats would bitterly dispute whether it was a "good deed" when Novelli swung the giant senior citizens organization, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, behind the Bush administration's Medicare reform and prescription drug bill just before the critical House vote on the measure last autumn.

What is not in dispute is that the decision to back the bill providing the first drug benefit to Medicare patients and expanding the role of private insurers in the government's popular health care system for seniors has provoked the greatest crisis in the recent history of AARP.<snip>

Kerry and most of his fellow Democrats, along with organized labor and other liberal interest groups, assert that the drug benefit is too skimpy to be meaningful and that the changes in Medicare's structure will lead to its downfall as a universal benefit. <snip>

Whatever critics may say about AARP's many commercial enterprises in marketing insurance and other products to seniors, the ethic of the organization remains one of a social service agency. It has a lot riding on what happens when seniors actually reach for the benefits this bill is supposed to provide.

To say that its credibility -- and that of the Bush administration -- is at stake is an understatement.

[barbaraann]

1. Here's a prediction.

Bush will make it look like he's going to allow importation before the election (if it happens) and then after the election some sort of unforseen event(s) will make it impossible.

Just a wild guess! ;-)

[papau]

2. smile - I think you see what I see! - but the media will sell "trust Bush"

just as they tried to sell distrust Gore.

sigh ......

:-)

[The Zanti Regent]

3. Screw AARP, Join the Alliance of Retired Americans

Why waste your time with AARP, since AARP=Always Advancing Republicans Agendas?

Join the REAL defender of Retired Americans, the Alliance of Retired Americans at http://www.retiredamericans.org/