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As reported earlier, AARP is teaming up with the Bush Administration
and the HMO trade group to push a phony Medicare.  Somebody has
finally found contact information for AARP leadership.  For
California:

MRS. HELEN RUSS
Phone: ( 916) 967-3804
Fax: ( 916) 536-9747
E-Mail: helenruss@aol.com

Please let this person know how AARP is betraying its membership by
its position.




Knight Ridder Newspapers, Nov. 14, 2003 12:00 AM

Medicare-reform bill incomplete, jeered by both sides


ORLANDO - President Bush on Thursday urged America's seniors to demand
action from Congress to overhaul Medicare as lawmakers remained astir
in tense negotiations over a tentative deal that drew criticism from
Democrats and Republicans alike.

Hanging in the balance is a new prescription-drug benefit for seniors,
the centerpiece of the legislation, a goal shared by Bush, Democrats
and Republicans.

Bush issued the call to action as top congressional Democrats and a
handful of Senate Republican moderates denounced the potential
agreement as an attack on the health care program for the elderly.
That bipartisan opposition, coupled with complaints from some
conservatives that the bill did not go far enough to restrain costs,
raised new doubts about the prospects for a compromise.

However, in a powerful boost to Republican negotiators, AARP, the
influential seniors' lobby, called on lawmakers Thursday evening to
accept the compromises worked out by congressional leaders.

"The time for broken promises is over," AARP Chief Executive Bill
Novelli said. "If this legislation is not enacted this year, a major
opportunity will have been lost and politics will have triumphed over
policy and public health."

Bush had weighed in earlier.

"For the sake of America's seniors, I call on the United States
Congress to get the job done," Bush told a group of senior citizens at
the Engelwood Neighborhood Center in Orlando.

Bush's remarks were transmitted via satellite to similar gatherings
hosted by other administration officials in Philadelphia, Dallas,
Phoenix, Cleveland and Denver. In Washington, leading congressional
Democrats vowed to defeat any bill that emerges from closed-door
negotiations involving administration officials, congressional
Republicans and centrist Senate Democrats.

"No bill would be better than a bad bill," said Sen. Edward Kennedy,
D-Mass., an influential Democrat on health care who voted for the
original Senate prescription-drug bill. "We won't accept a bill that's
a thinly disguised assault on Medicare."

Complicating matters for Republican leaders was a letter signed by at
least four moderate Republican senators that called on House and
Senate negotiators to abandon plans for Medicare to compete with
private health-insurance plans. That proposal, the key sticking point
in the negotiations, calls for a competition experiment in large
metropolitan areas and one potential multistate region in the country.

"The likely result will be significant increases in traditional
Medicare premiums for seniors living in the affected areas and could
destabilize the Medicare program for all seniors," said the letter,
addressed to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn



New York Times, November 14, 2003


Conferees Can't Resolve Issues in a Bill to Revamp Medicare


WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - After months of grueling work, House and Senate
negotiators said on Thursday that they had been unable to agree on
three big issues in a bill to revamp Medicare and provide prescription
drug benefits to the elderly.

They said they would send the issues to the Senate majority leader,
Bill Frist of Tennessee, and the speaker of the House, J. Dennis
Hastert of Illinois, for  decisions.

The negotiators agreed last month on the structure of drug benefits to
be offered to 40 million elderly and disabled people.

But Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California, the chairman
of a House-Senate conference committee working on the bill, said on
Thursday that  negotiations had "bogged down on the politics" of a
proposal that would require the traditional Medicare program to
compete directly with private health  plans in providing health
insurance to the elderly.

The prospect of such competition creates "apparently insurmountable
roadblocks to some folks" in Congress, Mr. Thomas said.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the negotiators
had made immense progress in many areas. But on the three big issues,
he said, "there  is still not agreement."

Lawmakers said that besides competition, the unresolved issues were
proposals to limit the growth of Medicare spending and to authorize
new tax-preferred  savings accounts for medical expenses.

Dr. Frist said he and Mr. Hastert would "make final decisions" on
these issues and submit their recommendations to the conferees early
next week. The  legislation can then be approved by both houses before
Congress adjourns for the year, Dr. Frist said.

Dr. Frist and Mr. Hastert reached a tentative agreement on the
Medicare bill this week, but it was not entirely acceptable to Mr.
Thomas and some other  conferees.

The Frist-Hastert plan included a proposal to test competition between
private health plans and traditional Medicare, starting in 2008 in
four metropolitan  areas and one region.

Lawmakers said Mr. Thomas wanted to expand that experiment. But
senators of both parties resisted his efforts.

Senator Max Baucus of Montana, one of two Democrats participating in
the talks, said he was very uncomfortable with proposals to allow a
larger  experiment.

"There was a rough agreement" on Wednesday, Mr. Baucus said. "It's
appropriate to stick with it and not backslide. Any backsliding will
so jeopardize the  legislation that it won't be enacted this year."

Thirty-one senators, including seven Republicans, signed a letter to
Dr. Frist objecting to the proposed competition. "It's not a
demonstration project," said  one of the Republicans, Senator Olympia
J. Snowe of Maine. "It's the first phase of undermining Medicare as we
know it."

The White House turned up the pressure on Congress to agree to a deal
and positioned Mr. Bush to accuse the Democrats of obstructionism if
no  agreement was reached.

"After years of debate and deadlock and delay, both houses of Congress
are nearing final passage of the biggest improvements in senior health
care in 40  years," Mr. Bush said on Thursday in a visit to Orlando,
Fla. "The House and Senate must resolve their differences and get a
bill to me. For the sake of  America's seniors, I call on the United
States Congress to get the job done."

Mr. Bush indicated he would make Medicare an issue in the presidential
race, trying to neutralize the Democrats' advantage on the topic.