{"id":146,"date":"2009-08-12T17:38:46","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T21:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=146"},"modified":"2009-08-12T21:03:46","modified_gmt":"2009-08-13T01:03:46","slug":"is-the-aarp-running-from-its-support-of-obamacare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/146\/is-the-aarp-running-from-its-support-of-obamacare\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the AARP running from its support of ObamaCare?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At his town hall meeting in Portsmouth, NH yesterday, President Obama again bragged about the AARP&#8217;s support of his plan for government-run health care.\u00a0 The President proudly proclaimed to\u00a0his hand-picked crowd of supporters:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Obama added,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But hold the phone, folks.\u00a0 According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/stories\/2009\/08\/11\/ap\/preswho\/main5235277.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Associated Press<\/a> and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2009\/08\/12\/obama-claim-aarp-endorsement-inaccurate\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fox News<\/a><\/em>, AARP&#8217;s chief operating officer Tom Nelson moved quickly to correct the record, saying, &#8220;indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.&#8221;\u00a0 That forced White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to backtrack, claiming that the President didn&#8217;t mean to mislead the American people.<\/p>\n<p>AARP has been under heavy fire for appearing with Obama on numerous occasions in the last several months seemingly in support of the President&#8217;s health care plan &#8212; and by extension, the various plans being pushed by Congressional Democrats.\u00a0 But with support among seniors\u00a0 dwindling, it is no surprise the AARP is now seemingly looking for an out.<\/p>\n<p>A new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rasmussenreports.com\/public_content\/politics\/current_events\/healthcare\/august_2009\/support_for_congressional_health_care_reform_falls_to_new_low\" target=\"_blank\">Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey<\/a> released yesterday shows that a whopping 56% of those over age\u00a065 are opposed, and\u00a046% of senior citizens\u00a0are strongly opposed.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>According to the survey, overall opposition to the plan proposed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats\u00a0has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.\u00a0\u00a069% of Democrats favor the plan, while 79% of Republicans oppose it.\u00a0 Telling, however, are the numbers for those crucial independent voters.\u00a0 According to Scott Rasmussen, &#8220;Sixty-two percent (62%) of unaffiliated voters oppose the health care plan, and 51% are strongly opposed. This marks an uptick in strong opposition among both Republicans and unaffiliateds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, Senator Arlen Specter, one of those Members of Congress who was met by upset contituents at a recent town hall meeting, said today that the protests are not representative of America.\u00a0 It&#8217;s sad, but that&#8217;s how out of touch Washington politicians and this Administration\u00a0are with the rest of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At his town hall meeting in Portsmouth, NH yesterday, President Obama again bragged about the AARP&#8217;s support of his plan for government-run health care.\u00a0 The President proudly proclaimed to\u00a0his hand-picked crowd of supporters: We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors. Obama added, AARP would not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,12,24],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-aarp","tag-health-care","tag-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}