Paul Krugman--AARP GONE ASTRAY

[The Zanti Regent]

Paul K hits another one out of the park!

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/opinion/21KRUG.html

[madfloridian]

1. Excellent job, Mr. Krugman.

SNIP...."So do AARP executives support this bill because they hope to share in the bounty? Maybe, but it probably runs deeper than that. Once an advocacy group becomes as much a business as a service organization, its executives are likely to start identifying more with industry interests than with the groups they are supposed to serve.

Thus it may seem odd on the surface that William Novelli, AARP's chief executive, wrote a glowing preface to Newt Gingrich's book on health care reform. After all, Mr. Gingrich has long advocated turning the administration of Medicare over to private companies — an unpopular idea, and also an expensive one (forget the clichés about inefficient government: private companies have much higher overhead than Medicare). But what looks like wasted money to taxpayers and retirees looks like opportunity to private providers. Enough said....."

[Lindacooks]

2. That man is GOOD

[Eric J in MN]

3. start of op-ed

Paul Krugman writes in the NY TIMES:

"This is a good bill that will help every Medicare beneficiary," wrote Tom Scully, the Medicare administrator, in a letter to The New York Times defending the prescription drug bill. That's flatly untrue. (Are you surprised?) As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, the bill will force millions of beneficiaries to pay more for drugs, thanks to a provision that cuts off supplemental aid from Medicaid. Poorer recipients may find previously affordable drugs moving out of reach.

That's only one of a number of anti-retiree measures tucked away in the bill. It contains several Trojan horse provisions that are clearly intended to undermine Medicare over time ? it will allow private insurers to cherry-pick healthy clients in selected cities, and it will heavily subsidize private plans competing with traditional Medicare. Meanwhile, the bill prohibits Medicare from using its bargaining power to cut drug prices; drug company stocks have soared since the bill's details became public.

[Snellius]

4. I'm glad he picked up on Novelli's preface to Gingrich's book

Buzzflash has a great report on this:

Novelli is such a fan of Gingrich that he wrote a preface to Newt's babbling right wing treatise on how to destroy the healthcare safety net for seniors and other Americans: "Saving Lives & Saving Money." This is what Novelli said in praise of Gingrich's book:

"Newt's ideas are influencing how we at AARP are thinking about our national role in health promotion and disease prevention and in our advocating for system change."

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/11/ana03307.html

[wellst0nev0ter]

5. Ahhh, That One Deserves A Drag

:smoke:

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Kick

If you know a senior, send a copy of Krugman's article to them.

[Catfish]

7. Good piece

I just finished reading it. I'm glad he notes the outrage on AARP's message boards and that he also comments on the energy bill.

[Mountainman]

8. Dems are not tax and spend as much as Repugs are

We need to get out the message that Repugs cut taxes on the wealthy, forcing middle and lower classes to pay for their give aways to corporations.

Repups are the most discusting group of people I know!

[PATRICK]

9. Big tent means weak ideology but

I smelled a real rat when during the Florida debacle the AARP was absolutely silent and MIA when the whole media ridiculed seniors, almost as a class, for being stupid voters in the butterfly ballot distict. It seems all the major big tent advocacy groups get soft like this, but then you can't live in the middle. With the brute power shift to lunatic rightism this flaw becomes fatal. People in "tune' with the occupation of ASmemrica rise to the top, favor Repug memebers overs the liberal ones, turn a blind selfish slant to all the issues, and then bow completely to the adotred tyrants.

Too bad the rationale of the advocacy groups is the exact opposite of that is going on in the GOP. Too bad the issues that given reason for their exisatence plus those little extras like seniors caring a great deal about their grand children and social legacy are so uutterly meaningless to the Right wing.

Not only a betrayal, but an adventure into madness and the absurd and the disgusting that merits a whole circle of the Inferno reserved for the inhumane.

As for arrogance that no rival can ever compete with the AARP, well that is up to the people as to how much of this adulterated crap we are going to take.

[Kat45]

10. I just printed this out to give to my parents

Unfortunately, when they see the words "New York Times," they'll probably decide it can't be believed because it's in that "liberal" paper.