Trump’s Executive Order is Backdoor Privatization of Medicare

Trump and Republicans have taken their hate for a government-run single-payer health care system official, signing an executive order decrying Medicare-for-all and promoting private insurance’s role in Medicare.

Trump signed an executive order on October 3 to “protect and improve” Medicare with a series of somewhat vague proposals that are aimed at expanding a more market-based approach to Medicare.... expanding private Medicare Advantage plans... calls for his health department to propose ways for Medicare Advantage enrollees to receive cash rewards or rebates as a perk for saving the government money when they receive quality care.

This is intended to sound like something of great benefit to seniors and it'll fool tens of millions.  It is of course the opposite.

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has swelled to more than 20 million, or more than a third of all Medicare beneficiaries... explicit intent to promote Medicare Advantage, a program that allows Medicare enrollees to opt into private qualified plans, could have major implications for the current Medicare system.... private Medicare Advantage plans that are by most measures overpaid compared to normal Medicare.

Medicare Advantage.... federal investigators found the private plans denied claims “in an attempt to increase their profits.”   The government pays the private Medicare Advantage plans a fixed fee per enrollee, whereas traditional Medicare is a pay-by-service system, making heavy users a liability under Medicare Advantage.... have been found to engage in some fraudulent practices to inflate the payments from the government, like claiming enrollees are sicker than they actually are.

Trump’s 2020 budget included cuts to Medicare to the tune of $575 billion. 

The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, on the Medicare executive order Trump signed and it really sums this all up far better than we could ever do.  Just read this:

Medicare Advantage is a hustle designed to allow for-profit corporations to suck up public dollars. For years, Republicans have shoveled money into Medicare Advantage plans and allowed them to offer benefits that traditional Medicare is forbidden from covering. This is a ploy to push seniors into Medicare Advantage plans instead of traditional Medicare. Medicare Advantage is stealth privatization intended to undermine traditional Medicare, which is an effective, popular government program and therefore loathed by Republican ideologues.

Under the Trump Administration, the thumb on the scale has turned into an entire arm. They’ve been flooding seniors’ inboxes with advertisements for Medicare Advantage. What these emails don’t mention is that Medicare Advantage plans often have narrow networks, restricting which doctors and hospitals patients are allowed to use. Worse, a recent government report found that Medicare Advantage plans improperly deny care “in an attempt to increase their profits.” It’s no surprise that older, sicker seniors are more likely to drop Medicare Advantage plans.

Medicare Advantage plans are also a terrible waste of public dollars. They have overcharged Medicare by $30 billion in the past three years alone.

Today’s executive order is yet another giveaway to the corporations that run Medicare Advantage plans. Ironically, the Trump Administration is framing the executive order as an attack on Medicare for All. In fact, the massive flaws of Medicare Advantage epitomize the need to get for-profit greed out of health care by improving Medicare and expanding it to cover all Americans.

Medicare, like Social Security, works. Republicans want to privatize both of them. We have to stop them and instead, expand both.”

 

Sources: 

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/03/trump-medicare-health-care-2020-025564

https://socialsecurityworks.org/2019/10/03/trumps-executive-order-is-backdoor-privatization-of-medicare/

https://www.vox.com/2019/10/7/20902615/trump-executive-order-medicare-for-all

Date: 
Monday, October 14, 2019