(Alexandria, Virginia) – Congressional physicians are reaching out to the AARP for assistance in solving the looming insolvency of Medicare, and receiving the cold shoulder in return. This prompted a response from 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, leader of the nation’s largest conservative seniors organization, with over 7.1 million supporters.

“AARP has once again shown that when the chips are down and America’s seniors are looking for strong advocacy on their behalf, they just fold their cards.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is very clear that without reform, the Medicare trust fund will go broke in 10 years.  AARP has a real opportunity — as well as responsibility — to help create a solution to save Medicare for America’s seniors and future retirees, but they reject out of hand all reasonable efforts to preserve and strengthen the program, just as they did with the bi-partisan Wyden-Ryan plan.

“What I find especially troubling is that when President Obama and (then) Speaker Nancy Pelosi needed AARP’s nod to cut $500 billion from Medicare, they were there before the phone hung up. Now you have 18 Congressmen, medical professionals no less, from the House and Senate asking AARP to help keep Medicare from going bankrupt, and the silence is deafening.  This is all you need to know to realize that AARP is a political organization feeding at the government trough, and not a true voice for America’s seniors.”

The open letter sent by the Doctor Caucus stated, in part, “Unfortunately, as long as politicians obscure the Medicare program’s prognosis for political benefit and stakeholders like AARP fail to publicly challenge these political calculations by educating their membership on the structural financing challenges facing the program, a national conversation about how best to save the Medicare program will not move forward.”

Continued Martin, “I commend Congressman Gingrey (GA-11), Senator Coburn (OK) and all the members of the Doctors Caucus for their leadership on addressing the Medicare crisis. They need real partners to keep Medicare strong for the future, and it is a true shame that the AARP has made it clear that it won’t be them.”

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(Alexandria, Virginia) – New data on the Social Security trust fund released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) actuaries projects a loss of $1 trillion from the trust fund just over the past year.  The latest numbers demonstrate that the program, already in serious financial straits, has taken a major blow due to the economic and fiscal policies of President Obama, who has led the nation into a stretch of record-setting deficits and unemployment, two factors that heavily affect the health and outlook for the Social Security trust fund.

Said 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, “While the President is eagerly throwing away trillions of dollars on bailouts and taxpayer funded loans to the failed companies of his political contributors, Social Security not only gets ignored by this Administration, but further devastated by his total mismanagement of our nation’s financial assets.

“Social Security and Medicare continue to be casualties of this Administration’s profligate spending and budget malfeasance.  This is a complete and total dereliction of duty, and future retirees, as well as some current recipients, will be devastated as their meager benefits will be cut even further to compensate for the money this President is bleeding from the trust fund.”

CBO lays blame at this breathtaking downward spiral on the diminished contributions into the trust fund due to the poor economy and long-term rates of unemployment. The low value of U.S. Treasuries is also a significant contributor, as deficit spending has lowered the interest rate the Treasury pays to redeem the money it has borrowed from the Social Security trust fund.

“The President is leaving a tremendous mess, that will have to be cleaned up by the next President and Congress. All attempts to address this crisis from Republicans leaders in the Congress have been ignored so the President can continue to play political games with Social Security, such as threatening non-payment of benefits, so he can continue to spend our nation into bankruptcy.

“History will remember Barack Obama as not just the biggest spender in the history of our nation, but the President who did more than any single individual to help kill Social Security and devastate the lives of America’s seniors.”

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(Alexandria, Virginia) – 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, leader of the nation’s largest conservative seniors organization, responded today to President Obama’s claim this morning at a national prayer breakfast that his health care law covered pre-existing conditions because he wanted to ensure it reflected Christian principles:

Said the President:

…When I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us… I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Responded Martin, “While the President summoned the support of the Almighty to his cause, the devil remains in the details.  He conveniently neglects to mention that his cheerleaders over at the AARP were able to have a provision removed from the final health care legislation so that they can discriminate against pre-existing conditions as part of their Medigap packages.

“The hypocrisy is just astounding. It’s bad enough to wrap your policies in Christian principles, but to talk about ‘the most vulnerable’ while letting political allies like AARP off the hook and deny a sizable portion of seniors coverage so they can continue to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits is just unconscionable.

“Jesus didn’t say ‘do unto others, so long as they are part of your political base.’ The President is once again failing to tell the truth, the fact he is now recruiting God into his tawdry behavior only makes this deception even worse. “

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(Alexandria, Virginia) – 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, leader of the nation’s largest conservative seniors organization with over 7.1 million supporters, released the following statement on the state of the Florida economy on the eve of tomorrow’s GOP presidential primary contest:

“Floridians are heading to the polls tomorrow, eager to help change the course of our nation, so it is instructive to reflect on the current state of Florida’s economy after three years under the current Administration.

“As a native of Florida, a ‘62 graduate of the University of Florida, and the leader of a national seniors organization which has over 785,000 senior supporters in Florida, I am naturally very troubled over the severe decline of this great state under the leadership of President Obama and Democrat elites like Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Under their policies and on their watch, Florida’s unemployment rate went from 8.6% when the President took office, to 12.3% a year later. Thanks to Governor Rick Scott’s aggressive pro-jobs agenda, it has since fallen to 9.9%, but under Obama over a million families have lost their home due to foreclosure, and 650,000 more Floridians are now toiling in poverty.

“Those, my friends, are facts, and can’t be dismissed or brushed away despite the army of media spinners dispatched by the White House and DNC. Even more troubling, all of this decline was ‘achieved’ after spending our nation into an additional $5 trillion of debt, while crucial programs for current seniors such as Social Security and Medicare have received no attention despite their dire condition, but instead have been battered by new entitlement spending.

“The President’s disapproval rating in Florida is now at 54%, yet he demonstrated last week that he remains committed to expanding government, growing our debt, and attacking free markets and those who create jobs. Florida has traditionally been one of the strongest and most vibrant state economies in the nation, and in just three years this President has nearly switched off the light that shines in the Sunshine state. As Floridians head to the polls tomorrow, they know as well as people anywhere that the time to set a new course our nation can’t come soon enough.”

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(Alexandria, Virginia) – 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, leader of the nation’s largest conservative seniors organization with over 7.1 million supporters, released the following statement in response to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) comment that ObamaCare was helping restrain health care costs and “fix” Medicare:

“Are Democrats hallucinating, or have they just gone blind, as there is nothing in President Obama’s health care law that constrains the cost of health care. The mounting body of evidence in fact proves just the opposite, that Obama’s health care bill is escalating costs, and undermining Medicare as an affordable program for America’s elderly.”

Hoyer stated this week, “We believe that the health care bill – and very frankly CBO believes the health care bill will do something that Medicare very badly needs, and that is to constrain price escalation in health care.”

Martin was quick to point out that the most recent numbers from the CBO contradict Rep. Hoyer’s assertions, and the President himself promised prior to its passage that his bill would reduce health care premiums by $2,500 for the average American family, when in fact in less than two years premiums have increased 12.6% to over $15,000 for the average family of four.

“Whether the issue is Medicare, which the Democrats gutted by over $500 billion and helped speed toward insolvency, or private insurance, ObamaCare still relies on fiction to and fantasy when claiming it will ease the spiraling costs of health care. The CBO actuaries have been very clear that the President’s bill has weakened the government’s ability to fund Medicare, which can only mean seniors will have to pay more, or care will be rationed more severely.

” Rep. Hoyer and all others who supported ObamaCare need to see the light, and stop blindly leading the American people with false information, or millions of seniors will help retire you this November, so you can return home and get the care you obviously need.”

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