The Unimaginably Terrible Health Care Bill

As the Senate decides whether to begin debating a bill that could leave as many as 32 million more Americans without health coverage, AARP is appealing to rhyme and reason in a new video to help explain the disastrous effects ahead if the legislation passes.

AARP this week released a video depicting the perils of the health care bill as a narrator reads a children’s book — The Unimaginably Terrible Bill — and also urging its 38 million members to contact their senators and tell them to reject the legislation.

In the video, the narrator recounts how “Not long ago on Capitol Hill, Congress cooked up their new health care bill.

And a great cry rose up from across the land: This new bill is terrible and it should not stand!”

The video then stresses how AARP is working closely with a wide range of health care and consumer organizations to urge the Senate to vote down the bill: “Doctors came together to say, arm in arm, we all took an oath to first do no harm. But this bill will hurt those who need medical care, so they all marched in protest to the town’s central square.”

The video is part of AARP’s full-court press — in the Senate, the media and communities across the country — to stop the Senate from enacting the latest version of a bad health care bill. This legislation would repeal the Affordable Care Act but delay any replacement. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the measure would leave 17 million more Americans without health insurance in the first year and 32 million without coverage by 2026.

In a letter sent to the Senate yesterday, AARP announced it would make the bill an accountability vote, telling its members how their senators voted via advertising, publications, website, direct alerts and the media.