Side Effects: AARP Employees Face Premium Hikes As Result of New Law

Kathryn Nix / November 16, 2010

Health care reform was supposed to “bend the cost curve” in health care and reduce the amount that American families pay in health care premiums.  This was the message the nation received from proponents of the new law, which included organizations such as AARP.

But now the group, whose membership includes 40 million Americans over the age of 50, is telling its employees a different story.  Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, writing for the AP, recently reported that AARP informed its 4,500 employees in an email that, “Health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of the rapidly rising medical costs.”  But medical costs aren’t entirely blame: premiums will jump “partly as a result of the new law.” (more…)