Today, with efforts to put more Traditional Medicare recipients into privately managed care, we are again at a very serious juncture in the history of Medicare. Here’s an important piece of that history.
The year was 2003. An important one in the struggle between publicly financed universal health care and private insurance. That year, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) introduced the first Expanded and Improved Medicare for All bill. The proposal laid out the vision of a national healthcare program, based on the popular program for seniors, which would improve benefits and expand the program to all Americans.
That year, Congress took the country in the opposite direction. It passed the Medicare Modernization Act, creating private drug plans for Medicare recipients (instead of having Medicare negotiate drug prices), and incentivizing private, profit-driven Medicare Advantage plans to compete with Traditional Medicare.
Now, in 2022, with more than 40% of Medicare recipients enrolled in private Advantage plans, with their distinct disadvantages and mounting scandals, the federal government is pursuing a Trump-initiated program to put more Traditional Medicare recipients into plans managed by private “direct contracting entity” middlemen (DCE’s)–without the recipients’ prior knowledge or the need for Congressional approval. (A new version of that program, called REACH, is already set to ramp up next year.)
Advocates for true publicly financed universal health care recognize this new form of privatization as the existential threat that it is. They see the bright vision of a single payer system uniting everyone in one risk pool large enough to make comprehensive care equitable and affordable for all…fading? Never. Single payer supporters are mounting vigorous, organized opposition, calling on doctors, senior groups, members of Congress–and the public–to beat this back, now. Please join in! Get informed and involved!