Save the Environment, Save Medicare, Fight Pork

Tell the people who represent you how you feel about the Energy Bill and the Medicare Bill. Use toll-free 1-800-839-5276 to contact your Representative and Senators. You can also visit the local offices of your Representative.

More numbers -

AARP TX Branch: 713-267-2226
National hotline: 1-800-424-3410

Instead of quiting cancel the magazine and say you will vote against every AARP leader who does not immediately vote to recall the national leadership. This proposal is only supported by 18% of AARP members.

More Houston area numbers -

Representative R. Christopher Bell
DC Phone: 202-225-7508

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
DC Phone: 202-224-5922

Senator John Cornyn
DC Phone: 202-224-2934

And yet more gets added: Move On want to know how you feel about this -- they are collecting
individual comments to share with the media, at:

http://moveon.org/aarp.html?id=2136-1452234-qgM855vgx1m7Ra7pUxn48w


The AARP has endorsed a bill that would make two fundamental changes
in Medicare:

1. First, it would force people to make a stark choice: either pay
sharply increased premiums to stay in traditional Medicare, where
they can choose their doctor; or be forced out, into an HMO.

Newt Gingrich, the former House Republican leader, said in 1995
that he wanted to let Medicare to "wither on the vine." This
change would lead to that result, with cost incentives driving
people out. (Not coincidentally, AARP CEO William Novelli
recently wrote the forward to Gingrich's book. [2])

2. Second, it offers a prescription drug benefit, but requires people
who want this coverage to buy it from private insurance plans.

This part of the bill also bars the government from doing the one
thing it could do to actually reduce the cost of these drugs --
negotiate for lower prices, using the size of the Medicare program
as leverage. Drug prices are soaring now, and unless they're
brought under control, they will eventually bankrupt Medicare.

AARP itself sells insurance and also sells prescription drugs, so
the group stands to reap huge financial gains from this change.