You will get a shock if you call the AARP to ask about supplemental insurance if you are being denied a kidney transplant because you only have Medicare and no other insurance to cover the 20% co-pay for a transplant. Most kidney transplant centers offer transplant for people up to 70 years old, but will not even make an appointment to see you if you can’t prove that you have supplementary insurance to pay for the 20% of the transplant that Medicare refuses to pay. For no reason that makes financial sense, except perhaps to the people profiting from dialysis, Medicare pays 100% of kidney dialysis for any American in kidney failure but only 80% of a kidney transplant! Since dialysis costs Medicare $72,000 per year per patient, and maintaining a person after a kidney transplant, only costs Medicare $15,000 a year, and we currently have over half a million people in the US attached to dialysis machines, the savings to Medicare would be in the billions of dollars if these patients could get a transplant. Since virtually all people in kidney failure are totally disabled and eligible for Social Security, the actual savings to the taxpayer if these people could regain their health and careers is billions more. Also, this is Medicare money that could be used for other diseases.

The AARP could save tens of thousands of lives and save Medicare billions of dollars if they would sell supplementary insurance to people who are in kidney failure and over 55.

If you are one of the over 200,000 people over 55, (AARP’s age range), in kidney failure and need a kidney transplant to get off the dialysis machine which can only partially take the place of a functioning kidney, try calling AARP as my aunt did. Here’s how she describes the phone call, “I called AARP about supplemental medical insurance. The first thing I was told, ‘Before we discuss the plan I would like to inform you that you must be able to answer ‘No’ on the application to the End Stage Renal Disease question in order to be eligible. Are you on kidney dialysis or have kidney disease?’ Yes, abandon hope.

If the AARP was serious about advocating for and saving the lives of seniors it would step up and offer the supplementary insurance needed for transplant to anyone over 55. Half the people in kidney failure in the US are over 55. Not only would this result in tens of thousands of transplants and lives saved, it would save all of us who are taxpayers, billions of dollars a year now wasted on the inferior and vastly more costly dialysis for people who are candidates for transplant, and are dying to get a transplant, but have no supplementary insurance.

This is a sophisticated way to say: “commissions”.

The 2008 annual report showed a substantial increase in revenue according to their annual report: AARP’s total operating revenue in 2008 reached just over $1.08 billion. Royalty revenues rose from the prior year to $653 million while membership dues ($249 million) and publication advertising revenues ($120 million) remained relatively stable.”

AARP is the largest nonprofit insurance agency in the United States.