{"id":2403602,"date":"2025-02-18T08:21:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T13:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aarp-uses-bad-study-to-rewrite-bidens-legacy-line-its-pockets\/"},"modified":"2025-02-18T08:24:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T13:24:43","slug":"aarp-uses-bad-study-to-rewrite-bidens-legacy-line-its-pockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aarp-uses-bad-study-to-rewrite-bidens-legacy-line-its-pockets\/","title":{"rendered":"AARP Uses Bad Study To Rewrite Biden&#8217;s Legacy, Line Its Pockets"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Faarp-uses-bad-study-to-rewrite-bidens-legacy-line-its-pockets%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2403602&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A recent AARP study aims to counter \u200cclaims that President Biden&#8217;s Inflation\u200d Reduction Act (IRA) will increase \u2063costs for\u200d Medicare beneficiaries. Teh report highlights that &#8220;94 percent&#8221; of enrollees expected to reach the new $2,000 out-of-pocket cap in\u2062 2025 will see savings. However, critical analysis\u2063 reveals that the majority of\u2064 seniors will\u200d not benefit\u2064 from \u2062this provision, \u2063as only a small fraction, estimated between 1.5 to 11.3 million out of 54 million total Medicare Part \u2064D enrollees, may see any financial relief. <\/p>\n<p>the article posits that \u200dAARP&#8217;s portrayal\u200c of\u200d the IRA&#8217;s \u2063impact\u200c serves more as a propaganda \u2064effort supporting Biden&#8217;s approach rather\u2062 than a balanced examination of\u2063 the results. It \u2062also mentions subsequent data \u2062from the Congressional Budget Office \u2064suggesting that projected savings from the IRA may\u2062 not materialize, as increased\u200d insurance \u200dbids could lead to higher\u2064 federal spending \u2062instead. Additionally, the article highlights \u200bAARP&#8217;s financial ties to UnitedHealth Group, raising questions about the association&#8217;s motives \u200band integrity in advocating for \u2062the\u2063 IRA, given its significant revenue from insurance products. <\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, \u200dthe article argues that \u200dwhile some seniors with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/what-you-need-to-know-about-trumps-latest-drug-pricing-moves\/\" title=\"What You Need To Know About Trump\u2019s Latest Drug Pricing Moves\">high drug costs<\/a> might benefit, most would \u2063face\u2063 increased premiums with no\u200b corresponding benefits, thereby \u200cquestioning AARP\u2019s independence as an advocacy organization.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A study recently released by the AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/pri\/topics\/health\/prescription-drugs\/medicare-part-d-enrollees-new-out-of-pocket-spending-cap\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">attempts to rebut claims<\/a> by &ldquo;critics&rdquo; of Joe Biden&rsquo;s Inflation (Reduction) Act (IRA) &ldquo;that the law will lead to higher costs for enrollees.&rdquo; It frequently cites numbers like &ldquo;94 percent&rdquo; to give the impression that most, if not all, seniors will see savings from the law.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But as with most things related to the AARP, the headline amounts to less than meets the eye. In reality, 1) most seniors won&rsquo;t benefit from one of the law&rsquo;s main provisions, meaning they will suffer from higher costs, not lower ones, 2) the cost of the IRA has come in <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/10\/reports-democrats-idea-of-progress-is-shoveling-billions-of-dollars-to-illegals-and-insurance-companies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">substantially higher<\/a> than advertised, and 3) AARP and its paymasters will benefit financially from the IRA &mdash; which might explain why the organization &ldquo;forgot&rdquo; to mention items 1) and 2).<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Small Fraction of Seniors Benefit<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>AARP examined the effects of the new catastrophic cap on expenses for the Medicare Part D <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/desantis-issues-drug-transparency-order-as-biden-administration-drags-its-feet\/\" title=\"DeSantis Issues Drug Transparency Order As Biden Administration Drags Its Feet\">prescription drug benefit<\/a>, which as of last year limits the amount a beneficiary will have to pay at the pharmacy counter. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/content\/dam\/aarp\/ppi\/topics\/health\/prescription-drugs\/medicare-part-d-enrollees-new-%242,000-out-of-pocket-spending-cap-substantial-savings-despite-premium-changes.doi.10.26419-2fppi.00354.001.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report&rsquo;s summary<\/a> notes, &ldquo;94 percent of all Part D enrollees <em>expected to reach the new $2,000 out-of-pocket cap in 2025<\/em> will have lower total [i.e., premiums plus cost sharing] out-of-pocket costs, averaging $2,474 in savings&rdquo; (emphasis mine).<\/p>\n<p>Note the phrase I highlighted in italics. How many seniors will actually benefit from this out-of-pocket cap on their drug costs? The answers vary, but there&rsquo;s a consistent theme. <\/p>\n<p>For instance, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cidsa.org\/publications\/impact-estimate-of-a-2-000-out-of-pocket-cap-in-medicare-part-d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">October 2021 study<\/a> concluded that between 3.1 million and 3.5 million Medicare beneficiaries would benefit from a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs. <\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/medicare\/issue-brief\/millions-of-people-with-medicare-will-benefit-from-the-new-out-of-pocket-drug-spending-cap-over-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">February 2024 study<\/a> by the (liberal) Kaiser Family Foundation found that, in 2021, some 1.5 million beneficiaries would have benefited from a $2,000 drug spending cap. Since the first full year of the Part D benefit in 2007, a total of nearly 6.8 million beneficiaries had at least one year where their out-of-pocket drug costs exceeded $2,000, meaning they could benefit from the IRA provision at some point in their lives.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/aspe.hhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/ee9b0f2bf15e69d7e3c7ca7618eaa2af\/projecting-impact-part-d.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">January 2025 simulation<\/a> by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the outgoing Biden administration estimated that 11.3 million Medicare beneficiaries will hit the $2,000 out-of-pocket spending cap this year. However, many (5.2 million) of these beneficiaries are low-income individuals who already <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">receive additional federal cost-sharing subsidies<\/a>; the more relevant number of beneficiaries receiving the most assistance from the out-of-pocket cap is 6.1 million.<\/p>\n<p>With the HHS report noting 54 million total Part D enrollees, the sources above all indicate that nowhere near a majority of beneficiaries will see any savings from the out-of-pocket cap. Instead, depending on the accuracy of the above estimates, roughly 90 percent of Medicare enrollees will pay higher prescription drug premiums in any given year, to allow a small group to benefit.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Propaganda Campaign<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>That policy is justifiable on some levels. Those seniors who do have high drug costs often have astronomical ones, in the tens of thousands of dollars. Most politicians and analysts, including this one, support some type of catastrophic cap on Medicare drug spending, even if they differ on where to set that cap and how to structure Part D generally.<\/p>\n<p>But AARP isn&rsquo;t trying to present a balanced discussion of costs and benefits; it&rsquo;s just flat-out shilling for Joe Biden and his flawed law. Consider this sentence buried in the study: &ldquo;The current analysis found that 94 percent of the more than one million Part D enrollees who are projected to reach the new $2,000 out-of-pocket spending cap will have lower total (i.e., premiums plus cost sharing) out-of-pocket costs in 2025.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Even as it advertises the &ldquo;94 percent&rdquo; figure, the &ldquo;more than one million&rdquo; number means that, by AARP&rsquo;s own analysis, more than 94 percent of beneficiaries (i.e., roughly 52-53 million of the 54 million Part D enrollees) will <em>not<\/em> benefit from the out-of-pocket cap. These individuals by definition will have higher out-of-pocket costs because they will pay higher premiums to fund a catastrophic spending cap they will not reach. It&rsquo;s a truly Orwellian approach: Claim virtually all beneficiaries will benefit when virtually none will.<\/p>\n<p>And AARP apparently plans to take that approach on the road. With a state-by-state breakdown of the supposed &ldquo;share of Part D enrollees estimated to benefit&rdquo; from the IRA, the organization doubtless plans on pumping this (mis-)information out to its state affiliates so it can get local papers to publicize the study promoting all the purported benefits of Joe Biden&rsquo;s law.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Misleading Assertions<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>It gets better. The study claims that &ldquo;the Congressional Budget Office estimates that, once fully implemented, the prescription drug-related provisions in the 2022 law [i.e., the IRA] will reduce Part D enrollee and program spending by billions of dollars. In effect, the costs associated with increasing the generosity of Part D coverage will be more than offset by savings from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/senate-budget-committee-chairman-sanders-says-they-will-consider-6-trillion-budget-bill\/\" title=\"Senate Budget Committee chairman Sanders says they will consider  trillion budget bill\">lower prescription drug prices<\/a>.&rdquo; To support this claim, the AARP paper cites a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/system\/files\/2023-02\/58850-IRA-Drug-Provs.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">February 2023 CBO presentation<\/a> where the budget gnomes estimated that federal Part D spending will decline by $17 billion in 2031.<\/p>\n<p>But AARP does not mention events subsequent to that presentation &mdash; namely, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/system\/files\/2024-10\/Arrington_et_al_Letter_PartD_0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">document<\/a> that CBO issued just last October. In that letter, CBO estimated that 1) higher-than-expected bids by insurers offering prescription drug coverage &ldquo;will result in an increase in federal spending of $10 billion to $20 billion in calendar year 2025, compared with our earlier projections,&rdquo; and 2) a &ldquo;temporary&rdquo; premium stabilization project (read: <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/08\/12\/medicare-agency-just-gave-kamala-harris-an-in-kind-contribution-with-your-tax-dollars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">bailout<\/a>) for Medicare Part D will cost $5 billion in 2025 alone, with its status in future years yet to be determined.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, if the trends CBO outlined only a few months ago continue, much, if not all, of the IRA&rsquo;s supposed long-term savings within Medicare Part D <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/10\/reports-democrats-idea-of-progress-is-shoveling-billions-of-dollars-to-illegals-and-insurance-companies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">will evaporate<\/a>. CBO hasn&rsquo;t come out and said that outright, but it&rsquo;s a clear possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Did AARP mention any of these new CBO conclusions when bragging about the IRA&rsquo;s supposed savings in its paper? Not a chance. Nor did it respond to my repeated requests for comment as to why it omitted a material, if decidedly adverse, development in the estimated cost of the IRA. For an organization that claims <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/politics-society\/advocacy\/info-2019\/prescription-drugs-price-transparency.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">others should be more transparent<\/a> in <em>their<\/em> business dealings, AARP sure doesn&rsquo;t want to come clean about why it wouldn&rsquo;t acknowledge recent concerns about the IRA&rsquo;s fiscal effects. Is it me the AARP is afraid of, the facts, or both?<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Follow the Money<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Why would AARP go to such misleading lengths to try to promote this Biden boondoggle? Apart from its general leftist politics, it has strong financial incentives to do so. As I have previously <a href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2018\/10\/11\/aarp-made-billions-denying-care-people-pre-existing-conditions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">outlined in these pages<\/a> and in work for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americancommitment.org\/aarps-multi-billion-dollar-financial-ties-to-mega-insurer-pbm-unitedhealth-cause-alarm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">American Commitment<\/a>, AARP makes billions of dollars selling products from UnitedHealth Group, the nation&rsquo;s largest insurer. And insurers made out like bandits in the IRA &mdash; the new &ldquo;negotiations&rdquo; (read: price controls) on pharmaceuticals help pad their bottom lines, as does the extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies in the law, paid for by <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/19\/democrats-plan-to-snatch-medicare-dollars-from-seniors-to-subsidize-their-rich-friends\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">raiding the Medicare program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>AARP always claims that policy, not politics, dictates its stances. But when the organization&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/content\/dam\/aarp\/about_aarp\/annual_reports\/2023-form-990-public-disclosure.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tax filing with the IRS<\/a> admits that &ldquo;gross revenue of AARP and its affiliates &hellip; are considered in employee compensation,&rdquo; and royalties, primarily but not exclusively from UnitedHealth, constitute <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/content\/dam\/aarp\/about_aarp\/annual_reports\/aarp-2023-financial-statement.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">over 60 percent of the organization&rsquo;s revenue<\/a> &mdash; and growing &mdash; each and every AARP employee has thousands of reasons to toe the UnitedHealth line, in the form of their paychecks.<\/p>\n<p>AARP can say whatever it wants, but it can&rsquo;t make seniors paying higher premiums think they are &ldquo;beneficiaries&rdquo; of the IRA when they aren&rsquo;t. And it can&rsquo;t claim to be an &ldquo;independent advocacy organization&rdquo; when the bulk of its revenue comes from companies like UnitedHealth.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div>\n<p>      Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group and author of the book &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/chrisjacobsHC\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent AARP study counters claims that Biden&#8217;s IRA raises costs for seniors, citing &#8220;94 percent&#8221; to suggest most will save<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2403603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/President-Biden-Remarks-Feb-9.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[50548,3620,4185,4866],"class_list":["post-2403602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-aarp","tag-biden","tag-legacy","tag-study"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/President-Biden-Remarks-Feb-9.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2403602"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403606,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403602\/revisions\/2403606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2403603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2403602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2403602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2403602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}