Me and the AARP, Part Deux

Last month I wrote about how I wrote [E-mail] to the AARP asking to be removed from their membership rolls due to their support of the House's Health Care Bill. Yesterday their damn magazine showed up. So I CALLED to cancel my membership.

It should be noted that when you call their membership line at 1-888-OUR-AARP you now hear, as your first option, "If you are calling about Health Care Reform, please press or say 'One' now." I did and listened to their message about how their volunteer Board of Directors, some of whom are doctors and nurses, studied and worked and studied and decided that the House's Health Care Bill is the best option we have. After hearing this, I pressed '0' and talked to a nice young woman who at my request cancelled my membership and noted that I did so because of the AARP's support of the House's Health Care Bill.

I like what John Angove says in the Letters to the Editor section of the Colt's Newsletter:

AARP, for $16, sells me a membership, so I can save money on hotels and stuff. Then the organization tells the president it represents my political views, including my opinion on health care. Next, it supports the Senate's plan to strip $400 billion from Medicare. And in a final act of social conscience, AARP tells me it will sell me medical gap insurance to offset the aforementioned $400 billion reduction.

Is this why AARP makes twice as much from selling insurance as it does from membership revenue?