Many of AARP’s members are seniors living on limited fixed incomes. AARP knows this. Despite knowing that, AARP is taking advantage of seniors:

Arthur Laupus joined AARP because he thought the nonprofit senior-citizen-advocacy group would make his retirement years easier. He signed up for an auto insurance policy endorsed by AARP, believing the advertising that said he would save money.

He didn’t. When Laupus, 71, compared his car insurance rate with a dozen other companies, he found he was paying twice the average. Why? One reason, he learned, was because AARP was taking a cut out of his premium before sending the money to Hartford Financial Services Group, the provider of the coverage.

Laupus stumbled onto something that many members of the world’s largest seniors’ organization don’t know: The group, formerly called American Association of Retired Persons, collects hundreds of millions of dollars annually from insurers who pay for AARP’s endorsement of their policies.

Here’s more information curtesy of Mr. Laupus:

After Laupus discovered his AARP car insurance rate was too high, he became determined to learn more about how his membership money was being spent. In September, he traveled to AARP’s Washington headquarters, two 10-story buildings that are connected by an enclosed, landscaped atrium.

He strode into the lobby, dressed in khaki pants and a blue checkered shirt, hoping to take a tour. He noted the brass doors and the marble that stretched as far as he could see.

“It says to people that we’re a very wealthy organization and we can afford to spend your money,” Laupus says. After showing his AARP card and telling a guard he’d been a member for more than 20 years, he was turned away. “We don’t give tours,” the guard told him. Laupus asked again, and the guard called AARP’s membership department, which also denied the request.

What a bunch of self-centered jackasses these people are. They obviously don’t practice the time-honored tenet that they work for their members. That’s what’s known as arrogance. If I wasn’t a magnanimous person, I’d call for people to jump ship on AARP. Simply put, these guys put themselves first. They certainly shouldn’t be allowed to advertise that people can save thousands of dollars on car insurance.

Frankly, it’s difficult to argue that AARP isn’t a collection of parasites.

It gets worse:

This week the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it was investigating Humana for providing “misleading” information regarding the Administration’s proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage policies-and prohibited other Medicare Advantage plans from providing similar information on how Democrat health “reform” could take away their current coverage.

Yet the Administration’s edict prohibiting plans from communicating with their beneficiaries failed to include AARP, which sponsors a Medicare Advantage plan but has been a prime advocate of Democrats’ government takeover of health care-quite possibly because AARP has been supporting a health care overhaul from which it stands to gain overall handsomely. Even as AARP advocates for cutting Medicare Advantage plans by more than $150 billion, an analysis of the organization’s operations reveals that it stands to receive tens of millions of dollars at the expense of seniors’ medical care-with Democrats’ full approval…

Based on this information, it isn’t a stretch to say that this administration believes in a play-for-pay system. Those that sign onto their agenda are spared while organizations that stand on principle while representing their clients are penalized. It’s time that this administration stopped that habit.

Michelle Malkin gets the scoop on what AARP’s game is:

A Hill source summed it up for me this way: “AARP has endorsed a huge reduction in funding of Medicare Advantage, which touches over 10 million middle-lower income seniors. If Medicare Advantage funding is reduced, and seniors are forced out of the program, they become potential buyers of the heavily-promoted and very profitable Medicare Supplement program sponsored by AARP (MediGap is 70% of AARP’s annual income).

It’s time that people abandoned AARP. The more I read, the more convinced I am that they’re nothing but a bunch of elitist parasites. I don’t see much use in an organization like that.

Technorati: Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medigap, AARP, Senior Citizens, Pay For Play

Cross-posted at California Conservative