Joe Biden rebrands Trump era Medicare privatization scheme

[crimson5pheonix]

Joe Biden Is Privatizing Medicare

The Biden administration is expanding Donald Trump’s Medicare privatization scheme that is forcing hundreds of thousands of seniors onto for-profit health plans.

jacobinmag.com

The biggest threat to Medicare you’ve never even heard of

Traditional Medicare has proven its value for more than half a century. Instead of selling it off to the highest bidder, let’s strengthen and improve its benefits while working to expand it to cove…

thehill.com

House progressives push for CMS to end newly rebranded ACO REACH model

The Biden administration revamped the Direct Contracting payment model after major criticism from progressive lawmakers. | The House Progressive Caucus wants CMS to get rid of the newly launched ACO REACH model, which is a rebrand of the controversial Direct Contracting Model that was overhauled...

www.fiercehealthcare.com

So an Obama appointee made it under Trump and set up a program to enroll seniors without their knowledge (and thus against their will) in private health insurance, who's only purposes are to limit the healthcare that the seniors receive and make a profit on the difference. It's being rebranded and expanded under Biden.

 

[Cheetodust]

Joe Biden Is Privatizing Medicare

The Biden administration is expanding Donald Trump’s Medicare privatization scheme that is forcing hundreds of thousands of seniors onto for-profit health plans.

jacobinmag.com

The biggest threat to Medicare you’ve never even heard of

Traditional Medicare has proven its value for more than half a century. Instead of selling it off to the highest bidder, let’s strengthen and improve its benefits while working to expand it to cove…

thehill.com

House progressives push for CMS to end newly rebranded ACO REACH model

The Biden administration revamped the Direct Contracting payment model after major criticism from progressive lawmakers. | The House Progressive Caucus wants CMS to get rid of the newly launched ACO REACH model, which is a rebrand of the controversial Direct Contracting Model that was overhauled...

www.fiercehealthcare.com

View attachment 5789

So an Obama appointee made it under Trump and set up a program to enroll seniors without their knowledge (and thus against their will) in private health insurance, who's only purposes are to limit the healthcare that the seniors receive and make a profit on the difference. It's being rebranded and expanded under Biden.

Just elect more democrats. Problem sorted.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Yes. That sounds like a Biden thing to do.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

It's hilarious how the right keeps trying to paint democrats as socialists, honestly

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's hilarious how the right keeps trying to paint democrats as socialists, honestly

It'd be more funny if lots of people didn't decide to keep believing them.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

It'd be more funny if lots of people didn't decide to keep believing them.

I swear to god, I'm gonna see "the commie Joe Biden wants to take away your Medicare and give it to socialist pharma corporations" on Facebook and have an aneurysm

 

[Gergar12]

I told you so.

 

[Agema]

Having a read through, this looks an awful lot to me like Pharmacy Benefit Management mark 2.

Although perhaps that's not strictly true, because PBMs at least operated in a mostly private market. A better analogy might be the way the UK government has privatised services, such as the new "Academy" schools, which have at best a very mixed record in improving education delivery, and been a fantastic wheeze for businessmen to shovel taxpayer money straight into their pockets. There are now people running one to a handul of state funded but privately run schools (with under 10,000 pupils combined and achieving middling results) paying themselves similar salaries to the person running Cambridge University (one the world's top 5 universities with 25,000 students and a budget of over £2 billion).

Similar systems exist now within the NHS. My local GP surgery is basically an outlet for a small company collecting money from the government, not a traditional partnership. I go onto their website and the link to book a surgery appointment is hard to locate, hidden in a mass of attempts to get you to sign up to private services run by that company which you'll pay for out of your own pocket (and some of which are free on the NHS).

After all, if capitalists can't reduce the government budget, what they can do is convert the way it is spent to make it easier to exploit for profit.

 

[tippy2k2]

I feel like demanding M4A (or any similar system where the average citizen doesn't have to go fuckin bankrupt because they got hit by a bus) should be a really really REALLY low bar to clear in order to earn my vote and yet...

 

[Agema]

I would only point out one thing.

That is not just a rebranding of the Trump-era policy, it's a reformation of the Trump-era policy with considerably beefed-up end user (i.e. patient) oversight and input put in by the Democrats after pressure, particularly from their progressive wing, so there has been some compromise.

And thus we might see that the Democrats and Republicans are not exactly the same, because if the Republicans had been left to implement this, there wouldn't be any compromise at all. It is still, however, deeply underwhelming to anyone who wants a healthcare system to prioritise patients rather than corporate profit.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Biden Hikes Medicare Premiums, Funnels Profits to Insurers

The largest-ever Medicare premium increase will pad the pockets of insurance executives who donated millions to the president’s election campaign.

www.levernews.com

I would only point out one thing.

That is not just a rebranding of the Trump-era policy, it's a reformation of the Trump-era policy with considerably beefed-up end user (i.e. patient) oversight and input put in by the Democrats after pressure, particularly from their progressive wing, so there has been some compromise.

And thus we might see that the Democrats and Republicans are not exactly the same, because if the Republicans had been left to implement this, there wouldn't be any compromise at all. It is still, however, deeply underwhelming to anyone who wants a healthcare system to prioritise patients rather than corporate profit.

Uh huh.

 

[tippy2k2]

Biden Hikes Medicare Premiums, Funnels Profits to Insurers

The largest-ever Medicare premium increase will pad the pockets of insurance executives who donated millions to the president’s election campaign.

www.levernews.com

Uh huh.

It's ok crimson, NEXT time they'll do what progressives want, we swear! We just have to hold our nose and vote for Democrats in 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024.

#VBNMW

 

[Agema]

It's ok crimson, NEXT time they'll do what progressives want, we swear! We just have to hold our nose and vote for Democrats in 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024.

#VBNMW

I'm kind of fascinated (from a neuroscience / pharmacology perspective) about this new drug aducanumab which seems jolly expensive and connected with the premium increases, and doubts about its efficacy.

It targets amyloid beta (AB), for use with mild Alzheimer's Disease. AB is heavily implicated in Alzheimer's. It is a peptide (basically a small protein or protein fragment) that accumulates and forms plaques. However, that build up of AB causes Alzheimer's was an an orthodoxy that has always perhaps outstripped its evidential support, and in the last five years or so that AB has strong causal effect of Alzheimer's has become particularly heavily doubted. AB does not seem to accumulate in the same areas as widespread cell loss, and AB accumulates more with age anyway, such that plenty of elderly people with normal cognitive function have more AB plaques than people with Alzheimers. Furthermore, in numerous animal models and Alzheimer's, drugs that have been effective in reducing AB plaques have not prevented dementia.

So you can perhaps understand that I am skeptical about this drug's efficacy. There's still plenty of rationale that AB is likely to be involved with Alzheimer's to some extent, but not to the extent that targetting it directly is likely to be any kind of wonder drug. At $50k a year treatment cost, it's potentially obscene. That's maybe 1-2 million people taking it in the USA alone every year, so $50-100 billion in revenue a year. As a monoclonal antibody drug, it will substantially more expensive to produce than a typical small chemical drug, but nothing that can explain that sort of price tag. I get hugely expensive drugs where the use is rare so that the drugs need to be expensive so the company can make their money. But if this is proposed for general use for anyone with mild Alzheimer's, it's just fucking broken: grotesque profiteering.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I feel like demanding M4A (or any similar system where the average citizen doesn't have to go fuckin bankrupt because they got hit by a bus) should be a really really REALLY low bar to clear in order to earn my vote and yet...

Exactly what I keep saying on here and that's why I don't vote for either party. They're the same party and the greatest trick they've pulled is convincing people they're different. It's sadly hilarious watching people get so upset when their side loses acting like it's the end of the world when it's just more status quo. They both need to be voted out.

 

[Buyetyen]

I feel like I'd have to learn Russian to express how depressing this all is verbally, so until then I invite you to simply imagine the magnitude of my sigh.

 

[Agema]

I feel like I'd have to learn Russian to express how depressing this all is verbally, so until then I invite you to simply imagine the magnitude of my sigh.

Sighski?