In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
AARP - Tool of Evil
You know, in the good old days that old folks always talk about, old folks made sure children were taken care of, they understood, to be cliche, that children were our future.
Old folks as represented by AARP believe children are marks, and politics a great and lucrative scam.
When I lived in California the town proposed in a ballot initiative a $40 a year hike in property tax (eeek!) so the local schools could hire art, music, and drama teachers (which they had none) and I believe some more athletic instructors as well. Well, the local AARP fought back tooth and nail, and after who knows how much money on posters and fliers, they got to keep their $40 a year. The children with nothing to do after school took to minor crime, so the city had to hire more police. Okay, I made that last bit up (I hope).
Anyway, AARP has mistaken looking after their constituency for sticking it to the younger generation. I don't mean to disrespect the elderly, that's a demographic I empathize with more and more with each passing year, but I do not think that the lobby that supposedly represents the elderly is doing the elderly any favors when it does the following:
AARP Endorses Republicans' Medicare Bill
In the culmination of a long courtship, Republicans won the AARP's support for Medicare prescription drug legislation on Monday, and the nation's most prominent seniors organization said it would spend $7 million or more in a huge barrage of television advertising to back the plan.
The bill is not perfect, AARP chief executive William D. Novelli told the Associated Press in an interview, ading, "But the country can't afford to wait for perfect."
Okay, so the program is going to increase the deficit insanely, who cares, we aren't going to be alive went that bill comes do.
So the bill is not perfect, how imperfect is it?
Gee, it seemed like such a good idea -- a plan to help senior citizens with their outrageous drug bills.
It's bad enough that the drug companies are ripping off the rest of us, but seniors on fixed incomes are just brought to their knees by these unconscionable prices. They've been begging for help for years, and for years the pols have been promising to deliver. And now they will.
Oops. Bad news.
According to a report by the co-directors of Boston University's School of Public Health titled "New Medicare RX Benefit Means Big Profits for Drug Companies," we have once more failed to sufficiently overestimate what special-interest money can do to legislation written by our elected representatives.
According to the report, "An estimated 61.1 percent of the Medicare dollars that will be spent to buy more prescriptions will remain in the hands of drug makers as added profits."
Isn't that nice? Sixty-one percent of what the plan costs will be additional profit for drug companies. Just what we had in mind.
Only our fully-bought-and-paid-for politicians (in Texas, we rather delicately refer to them as "whored out") could have taken a plan to help seniors and turned it into a plan to help drug companies already making obscene profits. Their estimated increased profits under this bill are $139 billion over eight years.
Of course, that's not all that's wrong with the bill. It has a peculiar doughnut provision that eliminates coverage for total out-of-pocket drug costs between $2,200 and $5,000.
The legislation also prohibits Medicare from "interfering" to lower drug prices by negotiating or implementing a price structure, or ceiling. Isn't that special?
The above was taken from the Molly Ivins' piece: Cynics, it's a great time to be alive
The AARP is becoming a tool of the GOP to bring senior votes to the Republican party, when individually seniors would be more likely to make a more sane choice.
The AARP needs to be weakened now, before the baby boom generation retires (at which time the "under fifty" tax surcharge becomes law).
- rob 1:54 PM - [PermaLink] -
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