Seniors Reinventing Life

Keep Seniors Healthy, Happy and Employed

THE AARP HEALTHCARE DECISION
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Posted by Robert Brewster

Many of you have emailed or called us regarding the current situation where AARP Members are resigning their membership in record numbers. You want to know if we should be inviting AARP members to join the Over60Exchange. In addition, you are being asked what our position is in the key issue - a national government controlled healthcare plan.

First, the answer is absolutely YES! Please invite any and all AARP members to join the Over60Exchange. That includes members that are happy with the AARP not just those who are resigning. We will be offering many things that the AARP has ignored or has chosen not to offer.

Second, the Over60Exchange was launched to help people stay productive, active, employed and happy during the later years of life. We also decided to remain apolitical in positions that affected our membership and focus our energy on common sense decision-making in those areas that are best for ALL of America and the free enterprise system. So, here's our position on a government controlled healthcare plan.

The AARP made a mistake. The AARP acted prematurely in supporting a plan that was far from finished let alone understandable. Even lawmakers, who are responsible for making decisions on our behalf, do not know what is in the plan. This decision by the AARP does not take away from the good they have done in their long history but it does highlight a major weakness in support of their membership. They have become too political and have wandered away from the grassroots issues that concern most people.

The AARP support for the proposed plan told their membership that they were more interested in positioning the AARP for political and financial reasons versus reflecting on what their membership was feeling or thinking. Again, this was a tactical mistake on their part and although it only involves one major issue among other important issues, their decision highlights and brings out into the open the overall AARP political strategy for supporting more government involvement in decision making over people's lives. This is causing many people to rethink how their AARP membership is being used to influence lawmakers into decisions that are not in keeping with what they, as members, believe.

The Over60Exchange's position is that we must maintain individual responsibility for life's health care decisions for as long as we possibly can. Just as we should be responsible for other decisions we make as individuals. Creating a program under government control that burdens every citizen in the country, young and old, with expenditures that may be impossible to control or audit is in our opinion not good common sense. Therefore our position, which again is apolitical, is that a national healthcare plan run by the government, in lieu of or in competition with a private system, is not a viable option and will only lead to uncontrolled problems in the future.

We strongly believe that decisions and controls made by a government agency (local, state or federal), without individual option selection or responsibility, is not in the best interest of the individual or the country. We do, however, agree that healthcare costs must be brought down and individual care better managed by both the medical system and the patient. We believe that there is much fraud and waste in the existing system that needs to be eliminated. There is plenty of evidence that personal decisions that foster better eating and exercise habits can dramatically reduce health care expenses and personnel demands on the system. Further, people making these decisions to improve their health should be rewarded and not penalized by a system that averages everyone to one single program.

You can read more about the Over60Exchange position by going to a special page on the website ( Click here )

Pass this Newsletter on to others. It is important that the people understand that we are an alternative to the AARP, not for selling insurance but for providing the tools and information to stay active and involved in life regardless of age.

If you wish to comment on this message, you can contact me directly at my email below.

Have a great week!

Regards,

Bob Brewster
Founder
Over60Exchange

Posted at 10:30 AM

(3) Comments | Leave Comment

Comments

Listing 1-3 of 3

bedaly

Posted Aug 13, 2009 // 2:16 AM

[Reply]

I think making or continuning health insurance as a profit making enterprise is a mistake.

Although I do not think the Public option is necessarily a mistake, I do believe trusting our healthcare manaagement to companies designed to make a profit is a big mistake.

The government is designed to protect and defend. We entrust our government with running our military and healthcare for seniors (medicare). Believing that they can't do a good job of insuring healthcare benefits flys in the face of the facts - they can and have.

I have a private health provider through my employer. I am getting ready to drop it (even though I contribute a low percentage) because my retired military insurance (a government program with private contractors) is a significantly better option.

We need to stop believing that private industry is the best vehicle for some things. If we must have private firms tell me that I can or cannot have a medical procedure, I want them to be a NON-PROFIT company. No one should be making money off the illnesses of the population.

rbrew7600

Posted Aug 13, 2009 // 8:50 AM

[Reply]

Thanks Brian.

Just like you, many of us with military backgrounds have seen how efficiently the VA medical program can function, especially for keeping records and working on preventative actions to help avoid poor health. But, this system is only supporting about 5 million veterans. That is only a drop in the bucket compared to a national health care program. The VA system has willing participants with personal discipline and responsibility learned from being in the service. A public program would have not have either of these from a sizeable percentage of the population, which could cripple the entire system.

I agree that there are times for profits and times for no profits. However, if everything is truly non-profit there will be no innovation or invention. Even organizations claiming non-profit status show profits, they just give them a different name.

Government does not produce anything it only manages what is there. We need incentives for new drugs, new techniques in the operating room, new more efficient equipment, less invasive operations etc. These will only come from for-profit enities that are motivated to create and be reward.

Government alone is incapable of real innovation and invention. That is not its job. If we relinquish that responsibility to government, we will be like the former Soviet Union, which created nothing and was left with nothing when it collapsed.

Our healthcare system needs both public and private components with the public being the smaller share. This is only common sense when looking at the historical record of our government' s success and failure record.

jim

Posted Aug 13, 2009 // 4:38 PM

[Reply]

Over60exchange welcomes diverse comments and points of view, and this is a good example of how open we are. Although I'm on the Board of Directors I disagree with Bob's point of view on this one. I welcome a government sponsored health care alternative for the following reasons.

1. I've been a counselor and pastor for almost 40 years. In that time I have listened to too many people who have been defrauded, tricked and abandoned by our present system. It is a pitiful mockery of a health system considering it exists in the greatest country on earth. We should be ashamed of a system that is run by the top (money-grabbing) few at the expense of our our neighbors, family members and friends. Too many have been left behind, defrauded, neglected and cheated. In one of my books, "Faith Trust and Belief," I devote quite a few pages to point out that what we have should be called a money-care system, not a health-care system.

2. America was founded on the principle that we ARE the government. If we don't like what is happening, we can at least vote the bums out. Who can we talk to when Blue Cross decides to pull the plug on grandma because she had a pre-existing condition? We may not have much of a say, but at least we can vote every two years. You can't vote against the board of directors of a private company. The government is not an enemy - it is us!

3. The two best insurance companies going today are the VA and Medicare. Both are government sponsored.

4. The present argument is a cover for political agendas. Who is kidding whom?

Wake up folks. We haven't even got a bill yet. Why is there so much heat with so little light? It's time to start talking TO each other, regardless of political party, instead of simply yelling AT each other.

Jim Willis