Dear Editor:
We are thoroughly disgusted with your stance on the Medicare drug program. Most seniors who belong to your organization and I have spoken to many over the past few days, are dead set against this program, which we believe will bankrupt or badly injure the present system, which is already in trouble. We are convinced that your organization has become a group of uneducated political hacks who have no idea how to handle the funds or the trust that we have put into your hands.
You have put the intelligent, moderate members of Congress, who understand the dire depths of this program, in a position where they politically cannot refuse to vote for this new drug bill – further maddening our ability to know who in Washington knows what he is doing with our regard to our welfare.
Perhaps it does not matter to the AARP that the majority of your membership is middle class seniors, who stand to lose the most by this new bill, but somehow we will find a voice, but the damage which you have done is irreparable. You would think that since the country in many ways has doubled the burden on the middle class, your organization which is heavily composed of this class, would stand up for our rights – but you have failed us miserably.
Your organization will soon become a thing of the past, along with a viable Medicare program – one which you – through your ignorance-helped to destroy. We know that we will watch hopelessly while we quickly lose our precious private plans that we have earned through years of employment service. Further more, we are destined (as the elder population is predicted to skyrocket) to see the premiums, the deductibles and the cost of each prescription put drugs out of the reach of every senior citizen.
When we start trading bread for medical assistance, we can look to your organization for putting us in that position.
Lee Gerber Golden
Bayonne
P.S. This is the message and not your note that I, and many, many of my senior friends, would like you to send to our representatives. I am sending a copy of this letter to the newspapers, but I do believe it is too late for seniors to be heard on this subject. How weird that we have paid your organization to betray us.