Letter to the Editor: AARP’s financial entanglement

In her recent AgriNews piece, Matilda Charles highlights the benefits of AARP membership, but leaves out a crucial fact: AARP’s deep financial ties to UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer.

AARP, an organization that claims to advocate for America’s seniors, collects billions annually in corporate royalties, primarily via AARP-branded UHG insurance plans.

This financial entanglement raises important questions about AARP’s impartiality in advocating for meaningful healthcare reforms, particularly those that benefit and protect big health insurer-PBM corporations like UHG and its subsidiary OptumRx.

AARP was one of the biggest cheerleaders, by spending over $60 million in advertising, of Biden’s disastrous Inflation Reduction Act, which raided nearly $260 billion from Medicare to pay for special interest handouts like EV tax credits and massive subsidies paid to health insurer-PBM giants.

[ AARP membership: It’s worth having ]

Meanwhile, more than 80% of seniors say Democrats’ spending bill has not helped them personally in terms of lowering costs, and 93% of seniors believe that AARP should be equally vocal on the need to address PBM-generated costs impacting older Americans. Yet, AARP remains eerily quiet on PBM reform legislation that would deliver real savings.

Charles also points to the OptumRx page on AARP’s website as a helpful resource for finding drug discounts. However, she fails to mention that the FTC is investigating OptumRx and other PBMs for “engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin.”

So, the question becomes: Does AARP’s financial partnership with UHG motivate its policy positions that are blatantly at odds with its members’ needs?

Seniors like me deserve an advocate representing their best interests, not one compromised by lucrative corporate deals. It’s long overdue for AARP to put patients over profits.

Bob Johnson is a retired trade association executive and senior adviser to Commitment to Seniors.