On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill that created Medicare and Medicaid. The original Medicare program included Part A (Hospital insurance) and Part B (Medical Insurance). In 2003, the Congress made two big changes to the Medicare program, expanding coverage by creating a Prescription Drug Benefit and Medicare Advantage. However, the 2003 law also opened the doors to for-profit insurance and to Big Pharma.
Medicare Advantage is the program that allows for-profit insurance companies to offer private plans to Medicare beneficiaries, and to be paid by the federal government for each person they insure. The Medicare Advantage program was created with the promise that the private sector could reduce costs by better managing care. But as the New York Times reported in October, the quest for ever-increasing profits by the health insurance corporations offering these plans has been insatiable. Through the process of “upcoding” and making patients look sicker than they actually are, insurance corporations have been overpaid by taxpayers to the tune of TENS OF BILLIONS of dollars.
Medicare Advantage plans spend big money on advertising. Most Medicare beneficiaries receive brochures and letters every month from any number of Advantage programs.
DON’T BE DECEIVED! About 80% of the plans have “5-star” ratings (which is a bit like Lake Woebegone)
AND DON’T GET SICK!! Medicare Advantage can seem like a great deal until you actually have a serious or expensive medical event like cancer, or a stroke, or a heart attack. There is increasing evidence that seniors and people with disabilities who are on these plans face unnecessary claims and prior authorization automatic denials. They frequently find themselves unable to find covered providers and face exorbitant costs for critical care. Stat News reported that hundreds of thousands of claims for folks in Medicare Advantage plans are even being auto-denied by artificial intelligence algorithms every month. These problems will only be exacerbated as the Medicare Advantage enrollees get older and people’s health care needs increase.
Dr. Don Berwick, former head of CMS, calls the Medicare Advantage program “one of the largest transfers of wealth from public coffers to wealthy corporations and shareholders.”
Dr. Phil Caper, a co-founder of Maine AllCare, has stated repeatedly: “The underlying pathology in our health care system is runaway greed within the publicly traded companies that exist to make its shareholders and its corporate executives as wealthy as possible. The way we pay (i.e. using the managed care model) is not necessarily the problem. It’s the behaviors and abuses that are fueled by GREED.”
This is where “Be a Hero” comes in. Be a Hero is an organization founded by Ady Barkan, an organizer who is fighting his own battle with ALS. In his dying days, he is taking on the medical industrial complex and corporate greed. This summer, Be A Hero has launched a campaign to Reclaim Medicare.
“When everyday people make their voices heard, elected leaders like President Biden feel the pressure to act on behalf of everyday people, not corporate interests. While it’s easy to ignore statistics, it’s much harder to ignore someone’s personal experience.”
Be a Hero’s strategy is to help people who are on Medicare Advantage share their experiences or opinions, and tell the Biden Administration that they need to address the issues created by Medicare Advantage plans. Make the issue so visible that President Biden cannot ignore it, and ask him to do everything in his power to make changes through executive action.
HealthCare for All Maine and Maine AllCare asking you to:
Sign the Be a Hero petition and
Email President Biden and ask him to take executive action and to direct his administration to everything in their power to DO THREE THINGS:
1. Improve Medicare so that people have the freedom to just choose Medicare.
2. Stop wrongful delays and denials of care in Medicare Advantage plans.
3. Hold corporations accountable by ending rampant profiteering, kicking the bad actors out and mandating transparency in Medicare Advantage plans.
THEN – On July 30th, the day of action, join us and encourage your friends and family to celebrate Medicare’s birthday! HealthCare for All Maine is hoping to recruit as many participants as possible for the Day of Action on July 30th, Medicare’s Birthday. We are asking you to do TWO things on July 30th:
- Post something on Social Media – a photo of a hand-drawn birthday card, a photo of you or your friends holding a birthday cake. Say Happy Birthday to Medicare. Hashtags #HBDMedicare and #ReclaimMedicare
- Text President Biden at (302) 404-0880 and ask him to Reclaim Medicare from Corporate Greed
For more information about Be a Hero, visit their WEBSITE. For more information about Maine AllCare, click HERE.
Healthcare for All Maine 