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Why would AARP support health care reform if the $500 billion cut to medicare would hurt the elderly?

and why did the democrats remove the special handling of "Medicare Advantage" for Florida if the democrats thought that would cause them to lose all those Florida seniors in next presidential election? In my opinion, the programs being cut have no advantage to seniors but is just a giveaway to insurance companies. There are better programs such as Medicare Supplemental that aren't subsidized by the government.

Public Comments

1. AARP endorsed obamacare without giving the matter a lot of thought.
2. Because the AARP does not give a flip about old people. They are in existence for the purpose of fattening their bank account and that's it.
3. It wouldn't hurt the elderly...
4. death panels.
5. AARP sells supplemental insurance.
6. Just like the AMA, the AMA doesn't reflect the entire view of most doctors in America. The AARP is similar. Many elderly or soon to be elderly should be in total fear of this health care vote. Most elderly don't support this bill. Nothing but politics and MONEY!!
7. AARP will make it up by charging more for their supplemental insurance. It will be come an Absolute necessity to not only seniors but to everyone else.
8. AARP sold out to the Democrats and are loosing members because of it.
9. It's old people against socialism. I say give them what they want and cut all medicare. Lets cut social security too. We could lower the hell out of taxes and pay off our debt. When old people get sick, we will send them out into the woods to die.
10. THEY WERE BOUGHT OFF, JUST LIKE ALL HEALTH CARE SUPPORTERS REMEMBER, THEY ARE JUST LIKE A UNION IN THAT THEY DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THEIR MEMBERS ONLY THE MONEY AND POWER THEY CAN GAIN BY CURRYING FAVOR
11. You're contradicting yourself. The federal government subsidizes every dollar a private Medicare Advantage plan pays for services. Every dollar of Medicare Advantage coverage costs 114% of what Medicare would've spent. The private companies said they needed that 14% subsidy in order to be profitable. Why we don't just pay dollar for dollar through Medicare is a mystery. {Private health plans, now called Medicare Advantage plans, were first allowed to participate in Medicare because some policymakers believed they could provide better services at a lower cost than traditional Medicare. In fact, because it was anticipated private plans would be so efficient, the government initially paid them five percent less for each beneficiary they enrolled than it would have cost to cover that same beneficiary in traditional Medicare. In 25 years time, the powerful health insurance industry lobby has been extremely successful in turning this rationalization on its head. Instead of paying private plans less to reflect the efficiencies they argued would save the government money, Medicare now pays them significantly more than it would cost to cover the same beneficiaries through traditional fee-for-service Medicare. In fact, today the government pays an average of 14 percent more to cover a beneficiary in a private Medicare Advantage plan than it would cost to cover that same beneficiary in traditional Medicare. And some types of private plans can receive much larger payments. For example, Private Fee-For-Service plans are paid about 17 percent more than traditional Medicare and plans in some localities are paid 50 percent more than traditional Medicare. In simple dollar terms, Medicare pays about $1,000 more a year to cover a beneficiary in a private plan than it would cost to provide care to that same beneficiary under traditional Medicare. These additional costs are absorbed by the Medicare program at a time when health care costs are growing exponentially, both for the federal government and for beneficiaries, and when some are insisting that the federal government cannot afford to continue supporting entitlement programs such as Medicare over the long-term. The National Committee believes continuing to overpay private insurance companies to provide services that could be more affordably and efficiently provided by the traditional Medicare program is unconscionable. The privatization of Medicare will ultimately unravel the universal protection Medicare currently provides. Achieving that privatization by subsidizing private industry participation in Medicare is doubly harmful to the program, and ultimately to the beneficiaries who depend on Medicare for their health insurance coverage. }* So, cutting that subsidy to the insurers is a good thing. We will save money in the long-run with near-universal coverage because people will get preventive care during their lives. By the time they reach retirement age, they won't need to most expensive form of acute care because they will be healthier.
12. A lot of seniors are in AARP for the cheaper supplemental prescription insurance and don't agree with their liberal positions on this bill at all. Saying the AARP supports it is like when the libs claim the AMA supports it (also not well representative of all physicians). Democrats really don't have Florida seniors in the first place, btw.
13. They were cut a deal that they will be the only supplemental provider that does not have a 6 month waiting period. They are another special interest that the president bribed. AARP has lost a lot of members due to this.
14. AARP is TOTALLY political and carries Medicare supplements. If seniors lose benefits, AARP hopes they will turn to them for extra coverage. This betrayal is why thousands of seniors are dropping their AARP membership.
15. Um... Medicare is an entirely government program. I don't think there's such a thing as a Medicare program that isn't subsidized by the government. Medicare IS a government-run program, not a private program. Yes, programs are being cut. This is primarily because of conservative concerns about government spending. All money being cut is government spending, and none of it is going to the insurance companies. I'm not sure where you got that idea unless you have serious misunderstandings about the nature of Medicare. I think it is quite clear that this bill is working against the interests of the insurance companies, not for them. The bill includes prohibitions on the common cost-saving tactic of denying clients coverage because of pre-existing health conditions. I'm assuming this also means it prohibits the equally common insurance company practice of targeting people with serious health conditions for fraud investigations in hopes of being able to drop their coverage. AARP knows what they're doing much better than the average layperson. Most of the complaints about the relationship between AARP and the health care reform are based on mistaken ideas, such as the idea that Medicare is not a government-run program or the idea that the health care reform aims to deny coverage to the elderly. These misconceptions have been addressed repeatedly by fact-checking organizations.
16. AARP is a joke! As far as I know, it has always been a liberal entity, of course they support 0bummer and his healthcare.
17. they want to kill off old people???