With ominous TV spots and a senior ‘strike force,’ AARP launches an all-out attack on pharma
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As beachgoers soaked up the sun on a balmy August day in Ocean City, Md., single-engine planes circled above trailing banners hawking seafood deals, happy hour specials, and in one case, a plea: “CUT DRUG PRICES NOW,” the sprawling streamer begged in block letters.
Some 450 miles away in Charlotte, N.C., an ominous TV ad proclaimed: “The big drug companies have been price gouging us for years.” A similar message boomed during commercial breaks in Phoenix, Louisville, Ky., and Bangor, Maine, too.
That same week, seniors dressed as pill bottles were gathered outside the Denver office of Republican Sen. Cory Gardner with a clear message: vote to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
It’s all part of a multimillion-dollar campaign against the pharmaceutical industry and its high prices — but it’s not coming from hospitals or Democratic presidential candidates. The push is from AARP, the seniors organization better known for travel deals and discount car insurance.
And it’s a sweeping and aggressive offensive from the group, which until now has been known as cautious, deliberate, and consensus-focused. AARP’s white-haired “strike force,” as the organization calls them, is on the offensive like never before — bashing big business with a righteous indignation that could surprise activists decades younger and positioning AARP as the drug industry’s primary opponent.
“I can’t really think of another time when there’s been this strong a message in opposition to an entire industry,” said John Rother, the group’s former head of policy and the current CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care.
As Max Richtman, head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, put it, “PhRMA is an 800-pound gorilla. And I think they’re meeting another 800-pound gorilla in AARP.”
Positioning itself as pharma’s main antagonist, however, has opened up the group to a new line of attack from PhRMA, the drug industry’s lobbying arm, which has launched something of a counter-offensive
