24 September 2010

"60 Plus" TV Ads Lie and Scare Seniors

FLASH: Alliance for Retired Americans, Washington D. C.

A pharmaceutical industry front group that battled the new health care reform law with scare tactics is using the same techniques in more than a dozen congressional races to try to elect Republicans who have vowed to repeal health care reform. The 60 Plus Association has, according to the Federal Election Commission, spent $5,516,241 on independent campaigning so far this year, with 100 percent benefiting Republican candidates. 

Click on HERE for The Washington Post's race-by-race breakdown of the spending. 

According to the Center for Media and Democracy, 60 Plus, which claims it is a "nonpartisan senior advocacy group," really operates counter to seniors' best interests by staking out positions that explicitly favor the pharmaceutical industry. Their ads are running in Arizona, Florida, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - states with a high percentage of seniors.

"With a drug-money-fueled war chest, they are likely to pop up elsewhere," according to the AFL-CIO blog. In Pennsylvania, for example, the ad attacks Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D), claiming that Kanjorski's vote on health care reform legislation threatened Medicare payments to seniors, when, in fact, the new health reform law does not cut Medicare. The new law actually takes money away from the big corporations who were receiving millions in taxpayer subsidies and instead puts that money back into the Medicare Trust Fund to strengthen Medicare for current and future retirees. To learn more, go to HERE.

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