FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 12, 2010

To interview Stuart Barton contact Phil Kent at (404) 226-3549

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“Have health care summit truly bipartisan”

SENIORS GROUP: SCRAP OBAMACARE

      ATLANTA—  “As Americans await the Feb. 25 White House health care summit, a good first step by the Obama administration would be to scrap the unpopular House and Senate legislation and start over by addressing targeted and bipartisan reforms that place patients first rather than big government,” says Stuart Barton, president of the American Seniors Association (ASA) representing hundreds of thousands of members nationwide.

      “The summit would be a good time to contrast reform proposals from Republicans and moderate Democrats with the radical language contained in the current liberal Democratic bills.  The summit will be useless if it is simply an Obama dog-and-pony public relations show after which the president persists in a ‘my way or the highway’ approach,” Barton says.

      “The summit should focus on whether congressional Democrats and Obama persist in cutting Medicare by $500 billion. Republicans also have a right to ask how Obama claims he won’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year, yet supports $20 billion in new taxes on medical devices and $80 billion on drugs,” Barton says. “The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warns these taxes will be passed along to patients.”

      “ASA has major concerns over any government-run plan that limits patient-doctor choice. ASA also hopes the summit could address insurance security by agreeing to make health insurance portable and less expensive by allowing Americans to shop for it across state lines and to price policies on the Internet,” Barton notes.

      Barton reports “many thousands of disgusted former AARP members” continue to join the alternative ASA. “The AARP betrayed its members by supporting the high taxes, Medicare cut and patients-last approach in the current, stalled Obamacare bills.

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