Whom Does AARP Really Represent?

B ehind its never-ending feel-good marketing campaigns, AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, is a multi-billion-dollar organization that spends millions lobbying Congress and state legislatures — making the organization an influence-peddling powerhouse. Though the group boasts 38 million senior citizens as its members, it’s not clear how many of its positions benefit America’s retirees. But AARP certainly serves as a useful lobbying arm for the health-insurance industry, particularly health conglomerate UnitedHealth.

My former colleague Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal reported last year that, in 2020 alone, AARP reached a major milestone by raking in over $1 billion in corporate “royalty payments” — coming primarily from UnitedHealth. Those figures constitute almost triple what AARP earns in membership dues from the seniors it purports to represent. A new report by the advocacy organization American Commitment found that over the last 15 years, UnitedHealth alone paid AARP an estimated $8.2 billion in tax-free revenue.

There’s an old saying that is just as true in politics — if not more so — as in business: Whoever pays the piper, calls the tune.

AARP served as a cheerleader of the Democrats’ spending bill called the “Inflation Reduction Act.” The organization put big dollars on media ads telling voters that the bill’s changes to Medicare would lower seniors’ drug costs. It wasn’t that simple, and AARP knew it.

If AARP were an honest broker for seniors, they would have acknowledged, and likely fought against, Democrats’ budgeting ruse allowing them to raid $280 billion from the supposed Medicare savings in the IRA. Billions were instead diverted to fund subsidies for non-Medicare health-care policies paid to big insurers — such as UnitedHealth.

The IRA also eliminated pro-senior reform measures implemented by the previous White House that would have required pharmacy-benefit-manager middlemen — such as UnitedHealth’s wholly-owned OptumRx — to rebate big discounts on medicines negotiated with drugmakers directly to individual seniors’ bills at their local pharmacies. Those savings could have helped shore up the finances of Medicare and saved seniors money.

Meanwhile, AARP turns a blind eye to other questionable activities of its business partners. Despite AARP’s own research showing insurance premiums and other insurance-related out-of-pocket expenses as their members’ primary concerns, and numerous allegations of billions in overcharges to Medicare from big-insurer-PBMs, AARP continues to keep company with those same big insurers.

This isn’t the first time that AARP has put health insurers over seniors. AARP famously lobbied for Obamacare, which was supposed to lower health costs for everyone. That hasn’t happened, but it did enrich the health insurers, which have never been more financially healthy.

More broadly, AARP has been one of the primary supporters over the years of trillions of dollars of spending. Even by AARP’s own admission, it has supported almost $2 trillion in new spending. That has not only contributed to our trillion-dollar annual deficits. It will also eventually put a financial squeeze on Medicare and Social Security — which are both going into the red over the next decade. Do seniors really support fiscal policies that cost their kids and grandchildren trillions of dollars of future taxes?

Congress should launch an investigation into AARP’s sneaky financial relationship with big insurers such as UnitedHealth. It may not be illegal, but it certainly calls into question just who’s calling the shots at one of the nation’s largest lobbies in Washington. AARP’s behavior and strange policy positions are a reminder that you can’t serve two masters.