Reichert (R-Wash.) takes on AARP over health care overhaul

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Reichert takes on AARP over health care overhaul

By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — It's a bit like tangling with the National Rifle Association. The AARP has 40 million members, including nearly 940,000 in Washington state, it's a potent lobbying force in Washington, D.C., highly visible nationwide and its members vote more often than just about anyone else.

Even so, Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., says he has no intention of backing off the fight he's picked with AARP over its support for the health care overhaul narrowly passed by the House. Most recently, his staff asked the Washington state insurance commissioner if AARP should be regulated because of the supplemental Medicare insurance it offers.

"I'm just getting started," Reichert said in an interview.

Reichert has emerged as the leader of a group of House Republicans who have AARP in its sights.

But taking on an organization as powerful as AARP comes with political risks.

"Mass membership groups like the NRA and AARP can bring a lot of heat," said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst whose Rothenberg Report is well known in political circles. "Getting in a fight with them is a calculated risk."

AARP officials say their group is nonpartisan, it doesn't have a political action committee, doesn't write checks to candidates and doesn't make endorsements.

"We don't operate that way," said David Sloane, AARP's senior vice president for government relations.

Rothenberg said he understands that, yet he believes there is little question AARP will let its members know about Reichert.

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