Maybe it was the way many seniors were burned by Medicare Part D, but AARP, the 40 million-member senior association that threw its power behind Part D, isn't coming out for any of the leading or trailing health care reform proposals this go-round.

AARP has joined other centrist groups* in the Divided We Fail campaign that calls for a bipartisan solution and states that "all Americans should have access to affordable, quality health care, including prescription drugs, and that these costs should not unfairly burden future generations."

Those sound like safe talking points. Just the kind that will ensure a repeat of the "reform" that gave us Medicare D.

As Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) reflected in a 2006 editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine: "The current problems with Medicare Part D are largely the direct result of the undemocratic way in which the plan was authored and passed. The final legislation, heavily influenced by drug-company and health insurance lobbyists, focused mainly on the needs of those industries instead of those of the seniors it should serve."

The absence of discussion on non-profit, single-payer health care came up recently on AARP's online member forum.

Some AARP members are cynical about AARP's non-advocacy stance during the current health care debate. There's a suggestion that they've been sold out. Wrote one, "AARP's income from royalties (amounts paid by insurers to allow them to use the AARP name in their advertising) is $498 million or twice the amount paid for membership fees.  Royalties represent 43% of the $1.168 billion total revenue."

Another suggested that AARP is attempting to kill President Obama's proposal for a public insurance option by requesting that Congress include long-term care in the health care bill, an expensive provision that would make it even less palatable to the hostages on Capitol Hill. "Then to have the gall to ask for donations when they get a half a billion in royalties from insurers," he or she added.

AARP's official "demands":

• Narrowing the Medicare Part D 'Donut Hole.' In 2007, 3.4 million Medicare beneficiaries fell into the donut hole, a coverage gap that left them responsible for their entire drug costs on top of their Medicare Part D premium. The donut hole is expanding as the rising costs of drugs outpace inflation.
• Approval of safe and affordable generic biologic drugs
• Give the Secretary of Health and Human Services authority to negotiate drug prices for Medicare
• Allow importation of lower cost drugs
  

In short, AARP leadership supports adding more band-aids to an already mummified health care system. Not much of a legacy to leave the children.

 * I am confused by SEIU's membership in Divided We Fail.