AARP continues its attack on social insurance
The New York Times
November 12, 2004
AARP Opposes Bush Plan to Replace Social Security With Private Accounts
By Robert Pear
Gearing up for battle over the future of Social Security, AARP, the influential lobby for older Americans, said Thursday that it opposed President Bush’s plan to divert some payroll taxes into private retirement accounts. But it supports new incentives for private accounts that supplement Social Security.
Working closely with Congress and the White House, AARP helped shape legislation adding drug benefits to Medicare last year. Social Security is an even bigger issue, politically and financially…
Marie F. Smith, president of the organization, said, “AARP adamantly opposes replacing any part of Social Security with individual accounts.” But Ms.Smith added that the group supported incentives for people to establish personal retirement accounts in addition to Social Security.
John C. Rother, the organization’s policy director, said, “We favor private accounts when they are in addition to Social Security, but not as a substitute.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/politics/12benefit.html?oref=login
Comment: The single payer model of health care reform is a program of social insurance. Social Security and Medicare are our two existing programs of social insurance. An attack on either of them is an attack on the fundamental concept of social solidarity. Do we care about each other,or are we each on our own? AARP is certainly sensitive to the hit that it took after its highly publicized efforts to assist the Bush administration and the conservatives in Congress in crafting and passing legislation that threatens the Medicare program with privatization schemes. AARP didn’t want to entangle itself in a similar controversy with Social Security.
To ward off any criticism, AARP took the precaution of announcing that they are opposed President Bush’s plan to divert some payroll taxes into private retirement accounts. But does that keep them out of the fray? In the same announcement they state that they support personal retirement accounts in addition to Social Security. That certainly sounds like a wise position. But is it?
As you are well aware, many versions of private accounts already exist.There is a very real risk that another new version that is designed and marketed specifically as an extension of Social Security would be regressively funded. The affluent, the sector with the real political voice, would then advocate for a reduction in the funding of the existing program,or, at a minimum, strongly oppose the increased funding that will be required to support a program that becomes top-heavy in the ratio of retirees to workers.
If AARP truly believed that the interests of all seniors would be served best by delegating more funds to retirement pensions, then they should be supporting the much more equitable method of increasing funding of our existing Social Security program. In sharp contrast, regressive funding of private accounts is highly inequitable.
In supporting private accounts, AARP is stepping up to the negotiating tables having already wasted a major negotiating chip. That is a very fundamental violation of the game-plan rules of negotiation strategy.
We could sound like demagogues by further suggesting that AARP may be contemplating its role in the enterprise of personal retirement accounts for tens of millions of Social Security beneficiaries. We would be consistent since we previously were demagogues when we suggested that AARP’s interests might lie with supplemental Medicare coverage. But if it takes demagoguery to expand understanding, then so be it.
If AARP is to represent the seniors of our nation, it needs to be a strident voice in support of Medicare and Social Security. Sadly, it appears that it is merely using the seniors of our nation as a front to hide their nefarious support of moneyed interests, some of whom don’t want to pay Social Security taxes and others who do want to enrich themselves through the management of private retirement accounts. The seniors deserve much better.
The AARP board needs to be replaced with individuals who will tell CEO Bill Novelli where to go. And maybe he should take with him Erik Olsen, the AARP President-elect, who is former president and CEO of Delta Dental Plan of California.