WHERE IS AARP WHEN SENIORS NEED THEM?

THE SUPPOSED BASTION OF ADVOCACY FOR SENIORS FOR THE LAST 30 OR SO YEARS HAS BEEN THE
AARP.They have amassed millions of members and has been an active advocate for seniors in Washington on many issues including Medicare and prescription benefits for seniors.
But since Obama has taken over the Oval Office they have been strangely silent on two issues that will affect seniors in an adverse if not a fatal way.
The two issues which they should have been opposing both in their lobbying efforts in the halls of Congress, and in the Media are the Presidents call for Universal Health Care and the impending tax on dividends on stocks.

Yesterday the Health Insurers and the AMA , an organisation that has less than 50% percent of the practicing doctors as members, went to the White House to say "Me Too" to the "Messiah" in Chief. They collectively promised to cut health care costs if they were allowed a seat at the decision table of the framers of Obama's socialised medical plan.They said they could cut heath care costs over the next ten years by 2 trillion dollars if they were included in the planning. A desperate and dangerous promise to avoid being left out of the "deal".
In his budget proposals, Obama has accounted only for revenue to cover about half of the projected cost of turning health care coverage over to the government. The $2 trillion in savings would be spread across the board, but could help the federal government cover those costs and extend coverage to the nearly 50 million uninsured.
What these statistics do not tell you is that 20 million of the estimated 50 million( I believe it is closer to 40) are illegals! So really we are talking about dumping the best medical care in the world for 20 million people.
If you doubt we have the best care, just visit a Mayo clinic and see the hundreds of patients seeking care from Canada, England, Germany and South American countries where socialized medicine is the law.

The only ways the medical care costs can be lowered is to eliminate waste, and allowing bureaucrats to enter the medical care system is no way to do this, as you will see in the Postal Service and Amtrak! The other way is to ration care, as they are doing in every country where socialised medicine is used. Rationing is a threat to everyone over 62 years old!

This is a grave threat to anyone over the age of eligibility for Social Security. If you study and follow the foreign models you will find that "old" patients are routinely denied angioplasty,open heart surgery, hip replacement and any life saving expensive treatments for Cancer. Palliative care is the road all seniors will be shunted down!

Then there is this threat to seniors that AARP should fight.
"President Obama's "Budget Blueprint" proposes to raise the tax rate on dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent.[1] This tax hike would hit senior citizens particularly hard, as it would depress the value of stocks held in many types of retirement savings plans they rely on for income to supplement their Social Security benefits.

These plans include 401(k)s, 403(b)s, IRAs, and self-directed state, local, and federal government employee retirement funds. As of December 31, 2008, these plans invested $4.4 trillion in stocks--just over of 54 percent of all their assets.[2]

Capital gains and dividends taxes decrease stock prices in two ways: They reduce the after-tax value of the dividends and capital gains earned by stocks, and they increase the cost of capital for businesses, thereby reducing future business profitability.

To determine how much Obama's proposed tax hike would reduce the value of retirement savings plans, the value in current dollars of the yearly revenue raised by the tax increase (as shown in the Budget Blueprint) is discounted by the latest available price-to-earning ratio of the S&P 500 to calculate the aggregate decline in stock prices. This is a widely accepted methodology.[3]

According to this calculation, the tax hike would cause stock prices to drop almost $93 billion. As the percentage of all stocks held in retirement savings plans is approximately 30 percent,[4] nearly one-third of the decline in stock prices would fall on stocks owned through these plans. This works out to $27 billion of lost value for current and future retirees unnecessarily redistributed to Congress. That works out to $434 of lost retirement savings for each family.

Seniors' Income Would Fall

The $27 billion of lost wealth would lower the incomes of seniors dependent on retirement savings plans. Seniors sell stocks held in these funds after they retire to pay for their living expenses, including basics such as housing, food and medical care. When the stocks they sell decline in value, seniors have less money to pay their bills, and their budgets are squeezed tighter.

Seniors dependent on retirement savings plans already experienced a precipitous decline in purchasing power due to the current recession. From the end of 2007 to the end of 2008, they lost more than $2.6 trillion of value--more than 24 percent of their total worth--because of the decline in stock prices.[5]

Unlike the decline in stock values due to the recession, the stock price decline caused by the dividend and capital gains tax hike is irrecoverable because the additional tax lowers stock prices permanently--or at least until the tax hike is reversed. On the other hand, the lost value from the stock market decline will reverse as economic conditions improve".

These two proposals that Obama has on his agenda will Punish Seniors! Will AARP fight them???

Source:Curtis S. Dubay, Senior Analyst in Tax Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.