Off Topic: AARP Looking After AARP not Elderly - Again

AARP Suspends Marketing, Sales of Benefit Plans Due to Grassley Inquiry 11/11/08. AARP on Friday said it would suspend marketing and sales of health insurance plans after Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last week said the plans are misleading and do not work in typical situations, CQ HealthBeat reports (CQ HealthBeat, 11/7). Kaisernetwork.org

Commentary: AARP has shown over and over again that its primary interest is in itself, not in the the elderly it pretends to advocate for. This became very apparent to me with its support of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act,which the Los Angeles Times Dale Van Atta wrote about in his article "This Isn't the Old AARP".

There many others who understand AARP's primarily selfish interest as highlighted in By Raising Its Voice, AARP Raises Questions (BusinessWeek), A critical history of AARP (60 Plus Association), "The Empire Called AARP (Money Magazine), Detailed history of recent AARP lobbying (The American Prospect), and the book by Dale Van Atta titled "Trust Betrayed: Inside the AARP" (Regnery Publishing, 1998).

If AARP wants to show it has genuine interest in the elderly, the organization should sell off all its assets with the proceeds divided up between organizations who are truly interested in the needs of the elderly.