Medicare

The UAW’s 2028 National Strike Should Center Medicare For All

April 1, 2024 Jonathan Michels and Will Cox, Jacobin. Strategize! Auto Workers, General Strike 2028, Health Care, Medicare, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), Worker Rights and Jobs

The United Auto Workers (UAW) are laying the groundwork for workers across multiple sectors to join them in a general strike on International Workers Day, May 1, 2028. UAW president Shawn Fain’s call to utilize labor power — four hundred thousand working members and six hundred thousand retirees make up the UAW alone — for the “good of the entire working class” is a major departure from business-as-usual unionism and represents a potential game changer for social movements to secure public goods, including Medicare for All, that extend beyond the shop floor.

How Medicare Advantage Care Denials Affect Patients

March 7, 2024 Matthew Cunningham-Cook , Portside. Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Profiteers, UnitedHealthcare

In 2023, insurance behemoth UnitedHealth spent $8 billion buying back its stock to juice its stock price—and its executive compensation, which is tied to the company’s stock price. It spent 39% more on stock buybacks in 2023 than in 2022. In 2023, it also spent $6.7 billion on dividend payments—a 10% jump from the prior year. The company’s CEO, Sir Andrew Witty, pulled in nearly $21 million in 2022—a 13% hike from 2021. (His compensation for 2023 hasn’t been disclosed yet.) Also in 2023, UnitedHealth spent $10.76 million lobbying Congress.

Baltimore Joins Over 100 US Cities In Endorsement Of Medicare For All

November 24, 2023 Ruth Milka, Nation of Change. Create! Baltimore, Health Care, Maryland, Medicare, Medicare for all, Resolution

Baltimore has officially joined the growing list of over 100 U.S. municipalities advocating for a nationwide Medicare for All healthcare system. This significant endorsement, led by Democratic City Councilmembers Kristerfer Burnett and Odette Ramos, aligns Baltimore with major cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in supporting a federally funded universal healthcare program. Burnett expressed gratitude to advocates who have been instrumental in advancing these resolutions nationwide, highlighting the importance of accessible healthcare for thriving communities. Rev. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr., a local pastor, emphasized the critical need for healthcare as a right, especially for those facing tough choices like affording insulin or groceries.

Why Maximus Workers Are Walking Off The Job

November 12, 2023 Christina Jimenez, Inequality.org. Resist! Biden administration, Health Care, Medicare, Walkouts, Worker Rights and Jobs

As a federal customer service representative, I help seniors access the healthcare they need through Medicare, often handling hundreds of calls per day to sign people up, answer their questions, help them navigate billing, and more. I am an expert on these programs, but the hard truth is that despite working for the largest federal call center contractor, Maximus, I don’t have access to affordable health coverage for myself and my three children and my pay is so low I’m struggling to stay afloat. This is why I’m going on strike today with hundreds of my co-workers who are experiencing similar struggles.

New Report: Insurers Are Gaming Medicare To The Tune Of $140 Billion

October 15, 2023 Matthew Cunningham-Cook and Lucy Dean Stockton, The Lever. Educate! Health Care, Insurance, Medicare, Medicare Advantage

The federal government is losing as much as $140 billion per year by subsidizing private Medicare Advantage plans, according to a bombshell new report. In the groundbreaking investigation, health care researchers identified the four major ways that private insurers systematically exploit the taxpayer-funded national health insurance program while denying care to the nation’s most vulnerable patients. The researchers additionally found that seniors could save over $1,800 in annual fees taken from their Social Security checks if the government redirected what it spends subsidizing Medicare Advantage plans to instead reduce premium costs. Under the current arrangement, “traditional” Medicare pays about $12,000 a year to private Medicare Advantage insurers for every patient whose care they “manage.”

NYC Transit Retirees Join Fight Against Medicare Advantage

October 12, 2023 Joe Maniscalco, Portside. Resist! Medicare, New York City (NYC), Retiress, Unions

TWU Local 100 retiree Patricia Jewett put more than 30 years into the MTA New York City Transit. Now at 67, her knees are shot and bronchial asthma makes it hard to breathe. But Jewett says she remains proud of being the first woman to ever work in the East New York Bus Depot’s Maintenance Division — and she doesn’t understand why she and her fellow retirees are now being stripped of their traditional Medicare coverage and pushed into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan. “I spent years being the only woman in an all male atmosphere,” Jewett told Work-Bites this past Friday outside the Downtown Marriott in Brooklyn. “It wasn't easy, but I stuck it out."

Two Large Medical Groups Shun Medicare Advantage Plans

September 26, 2023 Cheryl Clark, MedPage Today. Resist! California, Health Care, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Physicians, Private health insurance

Signaling what may be an emerging national trend, two influential medical groups with San Diego-based Scripps Health are cancelling their Medicare Advantage contracts for 2024 because of low reimbursement and prior authorization hassles, leaving 30,000 enrolled seniors to look for new doctors, or different coverage. "Negotiations with the payers for MA with our medical foundation groups and Scripps Health were unsuccessful and we have been forced to withdraw from those plans due to annual losses that exceeded $75 million," Scripps CEO Chris Van Gorder told MedPage Today in an early morning email.

Whipping Egg-Whips: Retirees Win Battles Against Medicare Advantage

August 26, 2023 Kay Tillow, Common Dreams. Resist! Health Care, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Retirees

An Egg-Whip sounds like a festive, holiday drink or a merengue dessert. It is anything but a delightful treat. Egg-Whip is the healthcare industry’s name for Employer Group Waiver Plans (EGWP), a provision for privatization of employer-based, retiree Medicare benefits that was written into the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003. That law, which House Energy and Commerce Chair Billy Tauzin twisted arms to pass, added a drug plan to Medicare, not by including drugs as covered Medicare benefits, but by compelling seniors to purchase private drug plans. Big Pharma gained a massive influx of government money into its coffers and rewarded Tauzin with a $2-million-a-year job.

The Journey To Medicare’s 58th Anniversary

July 28, 2023 F. Douglas Stephenson, Informed Comment. Educate! Congress, Health Care, History, Medicare, Medicare for all

The most successful U. S. health insurance program, Medicare, was enacted ln July,1965, to provide health insurance for people ages 65 and older and the disabled regardless of income or medical history. In the 58 years since, Medicare has become living proof that public, universal health insurance is superior to private insurance in every way. Medicare is more efficient than private health insurance and is administered at a cost of 3 percent to 4 percent, as opposed to private, for-profit health insurance, which has for-profit/administrative costs above 15 percent. Medicare’s costs have risen more slowly than those of the private health insurance industry.

Judge Blocks Medicare Advantage Switch For 250,000 Retirees

July 8, 2023 Caroline Lewis, Gothamist. Resist! Health Care, Medicare, New York City (NYC), Retirees

A Manhattan judge is pressing pause on a controversial plan to push New York City government retirees onto a new privatized version of Medicare this fall – a major victory for critics of the switch. In a plan that city officials said would save some $600 million a year, municipal retirees were supposed to be moved from their existing coverage – a combination of traditional Medicare with supplemental coverage paid for by the city – onto a private Medicare Advantage plan run by Aetna this fall. City officials had scheduled the deadline to opt out for this coming Monday, but seniors who decided to stay on traditional Medicare would have had to waive their city benefits and pay for their health coverage themselves.

The $20 Billion Scam At The Heart Of Medicare Advantage

May 26, 2023 Matthew Cunningham-Cook, The Lever. Educate! Health Care, Joe Biden, Medicare, Medicare Advantage

The health insurance behemoth Humana enjoyed a banner 2022. The Louisville, Ky.-based insurer made $2.8 billion in profits last year, while paying out $448 million in dividends to shareholders and more than $17 million in compensation to its CEO. The main driver of those earnings? The federal government spent $20.5 billion overpaying Humana and other private insurers for the Medicare Advantage plans they manage on behalf of seniors and people with disabilities. If not for those overpayments, Humana could have suffered a nearly $900 million loss in 2022, according to a Lever analysis.

Privatization Of Health Care By Unitedhealth Group

May 7, 2023 John P. Geyman, Counterpunch. Educate! Capitalism, Health Care, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Privatization

Privatization of public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid has been proceeding rapidly in recent years with little coverage by the media of its harms to patients, the public and taxpayers. This article has four goals: (1) to bring brief historical perspective to this trend in the U. S.; (2) to shed light on the experience over the last 12 years of profiteering by UnitedHealth Group, now the largest U. S. private health insurer; (3) to describe negative impacts on our health care system; and (4) to briefly consider lessons that can be learned from this concerted and stealthy exploitation of the public interest through the corporate greed of UnitedHealth.

Medicare Advantage Is Not An Advantage For Seniors With Cancer

April 23, 2023 Dr. Harlan Levine, The Hill. Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Seniors

When America’s seniors enroll in Medicare, they enter the most medically vulnerable stretch of their lives. And if they are unfortunate enough to be among the 1.9 million Americans each year who hear the terrifying words “you have cancer,” it is imperative they have access to the support and care they need to survive. About 60 percent of cancers occur in people ages 65 or older, accounting for approximately 70 percent of all deaths caused by the disease. But as recently diagnosed cancer patients embark on this unwanted, unexpected care journey, what many seniors do not realize is that their Medicare Advantage (MA) plan can often put them at a disadvantage by restricting access to the care they need and deserve.

How Canadians Are Losing Medicare

March 17, 2023 Dr. Susan Rosenthal, Consortium News. Strategize! Canada, Health Care, Medicare, Privatization

Ontario’s Bill 60 has delivered a potential death blow to public Medicare. If it becomes law, the provincial medical system will no longer operate as a public service but as a profit-taking business managed by the private sector. While defenders of public Medicare blame Conservative Premier Doug Ford, British Columbia, Quebec and Saskatchewan are going down the same road. If we hope to reverse this disaster, we need to know how Canadians won Medicare in the first place, and why they are losing it. World War II saw a global upsurge of labor protest.

New York City Retirees Fight Their Own Unions To Stop Health Care Cuts

March 10, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! Health Care, Medicare, New York City (NYC), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

New York City, New York - Defying two years of protests and lawsuits by union retirees, New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee voted Thursday to scrap some of the best retiree health care coverage in the country. The change aims to put 250,000 city retirees into a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan run by Aetna. Twenty-six unions in the MLC voted no, while others abstained. But their votes were swamped by the votes of the largest unions on the committee, AFSCME District Council 37 and the New York United Federation of Teachers. Retirees and active members protested during the MLC vote and marched to City Hall.

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