Obamacare Is Billion-Dollar Cash Cow for AARP

The powerful seniors lobby AARP stands to make more than a billion dollars over the next 10 years from the sale of supplemental Medicare policies under Obamacare, a House GOP report reveals. The report from Reps. Wally Herger, R-Calif., and Dave Reichert, R-Wash., alleges the Affordable Care Act will result in great demand for the Medigap policies that have the AARP stamp of approval, The Washington Post reported.

The House Ways and Means Committee’s health and oversight subcommittees have scheduled a joint hearing to question AARP officials about the group’s financial concerns. “This hearing is about getting to the bottom of how AARP’s financial interests affect their self-stated mission of enhancing seniors’ quality of life. It is important to better understand how AARP’s insurance business overlaps with its advocacy efforts and whether such overlap is appropriate,” Herger told the Post.

http://www.newsmax.com/US/AARP-healthca ... ode=C002-1

outdoor338 wrote: The powerful seniors lobby AARP stands to make more than a billion dollars over the next 10 years from the sale of supplemental Medicare policies under Obamacare, a House GOP report reveals. The report from Reps. Wally Herger, R-Calif., and Dave Reichert, R-Wash., alleges the Affordable Care Act will result in great demand for the Medigap policies that have the AARP stamp of approval, The Washington Post reported.

The House Ways and Means Committee’s health and oversight subcommittees have scheduled a joint hearing to question AARP officials about the group’s financial concerns. “This hearing is about getting to the bottom of how AARP’s financial interests affect their self-stated mission of enhancing seniors’ quality of life. It is important to better understand how AARP’s insurance business overlaps with its advocacy efforts and whether such overlap is appropriate,” Herger told the Post.

http://www.newsmax.com/US/AARP-healthca ... ode=C002-1

I wonder why the Republican's didn't get upset with AARP when they supported the Medicare prescription program? AARP made out like a bandit with that too, selling Medigap policies. In fact, it seems to me that program would of helped out the AARP even more than Obama's health program.

And if you really want to investigate the people who will make the most money from Obama's program, why not call the private insurance companies to your joint hearing? Hello?

Their stock is doing well. (rubs hands together while counting)

pineinthegrass wrote: I wonder why the Republican's didn't get upset with AARP when they supported the Medicare prescription program? AARP made out like a bandit with that too, selling Medigap policies. In fact, it seems to me that program would of helped out the AARP even more than Obama's health program.

And if you really want to investigate the people who will make the most money from Obama's program, why not call the private insurance companies to your joint hearing? Hello?

I work for one of those "evil" private insurance companies and am actually a project manager on a healthcare reform project. They want us to provide the option for any group to have their EOB's in any language they want. There are 504 languages that NCQA supports. EOB's are the explanation of benefits you receive after a doctor visit. They also want us to provide the phone number of the state ombudsman if they want to fight losing an appeal for a service. Now, most every state offers a Spanish language translation on their EOB's. All states also provide contact information for the state ombudsman with the notice of denial of their final appeal. Members cannot appeal to the state ombudsman until they have exhausted internal appeals.

So if a group of 10 has 2 members whose primary language is Chinese we need to have the ability to provide EOB's in Chinese or swahili or whatever. We also need to add the state ombudsman information to all EOB's. This will result in the addition of a page to the EOB's. Now, this may not seem like much. However, if you consider New York or California there are tens of thousands of claims that come in each day. Add a page to each EOB that has to be sent out and you're talking many millions of dollars a year just to include this information. Now, how many people will meet the threshold to have their EOB's in Chinese? Not enough to cover the costs, that's for sure. So, everyone gets to pay more so that a few people that don't speak english can get EOB's in their language.

Finally, have you ever looked at your insurance company's transparency offerings? Most, if not all insurance companies offer something. You can look at the cost of a service and compare hospitals. For example, try a hip replacement at say Swedish and Rose. (These examples are very real but made up numbers to hide the company I work for.) The hip replacement can cost $32k at Swedish and $20k at Rose. You may also find that Rose has higher quality metrics then Swedish. So, please stop pointing to the insurance companies as the bad guys when there is plenty of blame to go around.

Stymie wrote: So, please stop pointing to the insurance companies as the bad guys when there is plenty of blame to go around.

My point was that the Republicans loved and encouraged AARP when they supported their plan, but now go after AARP when they support the Democrat's plan. So I find that inconsistant, if not hypocritical.

The original post mentioned that AARP would make over a billion dollars. I assume that is a small fraction of what insurance companies would make if over 30 million new people were added to the insured under Obama's plan. So if the Republicans are worried about who would make the most money off Obama's plan, why didn't they ask to look at the insurance companies? So again, it seems inconsistant to me and I was just pointing that out, not that I was asking for any investigations of anyone.

I didn't call the insurance companies evil, and I appreciate all you pointed about regarding the massive paper work they must go through. Not that I'm a huge fan of how they operate either, at least based on personal experience with my insurance companies.

Anyway, it's nice to have someone here with detailed knowledge of how health insurance operates. Feel free to let us know more anytime, and I think you will see the "evil" or "big" title added in some future posts, but probably not by me.