The Coffee Shop

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Democrat Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan:

 

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AARP

* Aims “to enhance the quality of life” for people aged 50 and older
* Earns hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties each year by allowing insurance carriers and financial-service corporations to sell their products under the AARP brand name
* Strongly supports leftist and Democratic Party agendas, most notably health-care reform

 

The AARP, founded in 1958 as the American Association of Retired Persons, officially changed its name to the acronym “AARP” in 1999, to convey that it no longer focused solely on retirees. By then, the organization had evolved into a political lobbying group that also offered for a low annual membership fee a “wide range of unique benefits, special products, and services” designed to “enhance the quality of life” for anyone aged 50 or older. With more than 2,500 local chapters distributed throughout all 50 U.S. states, AARP today has over 39 million members (with a median age of 65), making it the largest membership group in America. Its AARP Bulletin, delivered to 24 million homes each month, has a larger circulation than any other magazine in the country.

As of 2008, AARP’s total assets totaled $1.6 billion, including some $421 million in stocks and bonds and a lavish Washington, DC headquarters whose assessed value exceeded $200 million.

Relatively little of AARP’s income derives from membership dues. Of the organization’s $1.14 billion in 2008 revenues, for example, only $249 million came from dues. By contrast, fully $653 million came from “royalties,” as explained by AARP spokeswoman Elly Spinweber: “AARP licenses its name to carefully-selected providers to make various products and services available to our members. In exchange for use of AARP’s intellectual property, these providers pay AARP a royalty which we use to deliver on our mission …”

The royalties paid to AARP are generated chiefly by sales of health-related products and financial products. The former, which accounted for approximately $425 million in royalties during 2008, include such items as “Medigap,” an insurance program that covers healthcare expenses not paid by Medicare. Medigap is a product not of AARP but rather of the United Healthcare insurance company, which pays royalties to AARP in exchange for the right to sell its product under AARP’s brand name. This is just one of numerous health-insurance plans which companies like United Healthcare and Aetna sell in this manner.

In a similar fashion, AARP Financial, Inc.—a subsidiary of AARP—offers an array of financial products which generate additional royalties ($205 million in 2008) from companies like New York Life, Hartford Insurance, Chase, and Visa. These corporations market, under AARP’s name, such things as life-insurance policies, home and auto insurance, mutual funds, annuities, IRA retirement accounts, bank CDs, and credit cards.

Closely tied to congressional Democrats, AARP is the largest non-industry lobbying group in the United States, paying lobbyists huge sums to petition Congress and federal agencies on matters of social and political import. In 2008, the organization’s $27.9 million in lobbying expenditures were exceeded only by those of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Exxon Mobil. In 2009, AARP employed more than 60 in-house lobbyists, including luminaries like Nancy LeaMond (a former political appointee in the Bill Clinton administration), Michael Naylor (a former legislative director for Democrat Senator Chris Dodd), and Rhonda Sharon Richards (former staff director under Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski).

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