The bottom line is this: Compared to Medicare Advantage insurers, these new
contractors are able to increase the amount they skim off what taxpayers give
them from 15% to 40% of an inflated pool of funds for doing a job that
traditional Medicare does with 2% of payments based solely on services provided.
No wonder almost all major insurers currently offering Medicare Advantage have
applied to become contractors. Since the goal is 100% enrollment of Medicare
patients, it's clear that the rest will soon follow.
Any program so profitable for Wall Street is sure to achieve bipartisan support, especially since this is the only way for the medical insurance industry to avoid the death spiral of insurance costs. That's why Biden has embraced it with all the enthusiasm of any other politician in the pocket s of Wall Street investors. His response to a campaign led by Physicians for a National Health Program was to change the name of the program from Medicare Direct Contracting to ACO-REACH, while keeping all the essential provisions of the original version intact.
Biden will ultimately be responsible for the privatization of Medicare if we can't get him to kill ACO-REACH, because the bill that created Obamacare barred Congress from challenging programs created by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. (While the Supreme Court could rule that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation lacks the power to create such a sweeping program without congressional approval, as it stripped the EPA of the power to regulate carbon emissions, the corporatist-dominated Court is of course unlikely to challenge a program that serves Wall Street interests).
Since this scheme has been promoted by both Republican and Democratic administrations, the only way to stop it is to put pressure on members of Congress to speak out publicly against the program. We have to kill this thing by dragging it out into the sunlight, where taxpayers can see it and become appropriately outraged. If Congress can't stop the program by direct action, they can certainly bring pressure to bear on Biden to do so.
This may be one issue where public outrage will make a difference
It may seem that trying to whip up outrage over government corruption is a quaint idea, but recent events have made this a prime time to make this a major issue. Biden, who has a long history of favoring Social Security privatization, recently received a great deal of negative attention for nominating a long-time champion of privatization to a position on the Social Security Advisory Board. Public awareness of the fact that he is promoting privatization of both programs may be more effective at stoking public anger than would either issue by itself. If you doubt it, consider the huge hit in popularity that George Bush took when he tried to privatize Social Security in 2005.
It's time to go out on the street and raise some hell. Call, write, and visit your members of Congress. Question them during at appearances during the August recess. Write to your local paper. We have to apply maximum pressure on them to lean on Biden if we want to stop this travesty and save any chance of creating a publicly funded system of universal health care that will put people over profit.
Any program so profitable for Wall Street is sure to achieve bipartisan support, especially since this is the only way for the medical insurance industry to avoid the death spiral of insurance costs. That's why Biden has embraced it with all the enthusiasm of any other politician in the pocket s of Wall Street investors. His response to a campaign led by Physicians for a National Health Program was to change the name of the program from Medicare Direct Contracting to ACO-REACH, while keeping all the essential provisions of the original version intact.
Biden will ultimately be responsible for the privatization of Medicare if we can't get him to kill ACO-REACH, because the bill that created Obamacare barred Congress from challenging programs created by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. (While the Supreme Court could rule that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation lacks the power to create such a sweeping program without congressional approval, as it stripped the EPA of the power to regulate carbon emissions, the corporatist-dominated Court is of course unlikely to challenge a program that serves Wall Street interests).
Since this scheme has been promoted by both Republican and Democratic administrations, the only way to stop it is to put pressure on members of Congress to speak out publicly against the program. We have to kill this thing by dragging it out into the sunlight, where taxpayers can see it and become appropriately outraged. If Congress can't stop the program by direct action, they can certainly bring pressure to bear on Biden to do so.
It may seem that trying to whip up outrage over government corruption is a quaint idea, but recent events have made this a prime time to make this a major issue. Biden, who has a long history of favoring Social Security privatization, recently received a great deal of negative attention for nominating a long-time champion of privatization to a position on the Social Security Advisory Board. Public awareness of the fact that he is promoting privatization of both programs may be more effective at stoking public anger than would either issue by itself. If you doubt it, consider the huge hit in popularity that George Bush took when he tried to privatize Social Security in 2005.
It's time to go out on the street and raise some hell. Call, write, and visit your members of Congress. Question them during at appearances during the August recess. Write to your local paper. We have to apply maximum pressure on them to lean on Biden if we want to stop this travesty and save any chance of creating a publicly funded system of universal health care that will put people over profit.
(Article changed on Aug 13, 2022 at 4:37 PM EDT)
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