Donald Trump signed his executive order, which his communications team hyped as “defending Medicare from socialist destruction.” The truth turned out to be even more insidious:

Trump’s Executive Order is Backdoor Privatization of Medicare

Trump’s Executive Order will push more seniors into private plans through a hustle called Medicare Advantage. For years, Republicans have shoveled money into Medicare Advantage plans and allowed them to offer benefits that traditional Medicare is forbidden from covering.¹ Medicare Advantage is stealth privatization intended to undermine traditional Medicare.

We’re not going to take this stealth privatization effort lying down. We’re fighting back! Chip in to launch a campaign to stop Trump’s attempt to privatize Medicare!

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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.²

What this propaganda doesn’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, just like other for-profit insurers, Medicare Advantage plans improperly deny care “in an attempt to increase their profits.”³

It’s no surprise that older, sicker seniors are more likely to drop Medicare Advantage plans. ⁴

By allowing Medicare Advantage to cherry-pick healthy seniors while leaving the sickest to be covered through traditional Medicare, Trump and Republicans threaten access to health care for seniors and people with disabilities as well as the solvency of Medicare in the long term.

Medicare is an effective, popular government program. That’s why Trump and his corporate masters want to destroy it. Together, we won’t let them.

Medicare Advantage plans are also a terrible waste of public dollars. They have overcharged Medicare by $30 billion in the past three years alone.⁵

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, when the truth is that 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. Period.

Republicans want to privatize Social Security and Medicare, and cut billions from their budgets. Together, we’re going to have to stop them and instead, expand both.

Thanks,

Nancy Altman
President
Social Security Works

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¹ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/dont-touch-my-medicare/
² https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/us/politics/trump-medicare-advantage-plans.html
³ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/13/us/politics/medicare-claims-private-plans.html
⁴ https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/05/535381473/as-seniors-get-sicker-theyre-more-likely-to-drop-medicare-advantage-plans
⁵ https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/16/740964958/records-show-medicare-advantage-plans-overbill-taxpayers-by-billions-annually