Your tax dollars are funding a $64 billion scam
Your tax dollars are funding a $64 billion scam
They’re competing unfairly with Medicare, and you and I are paying for it. It’s obscene.When George W. Bush and congressional Republicans (and a handful of bought-off Democrats) created Medicare Advantage in 2003, it was the fulfillment of half of Bush’s goal of privatizing Social Security and Medi....
There is a solution. Tax ultramillionaires and billionaires and corporations at 1950's 93% rate, fully fund comprehensive health, no co-payment, no deductible, including at least annual preventative visits.
You don’t really even need to fund single payer healthcare. The U.S. spends twice as much on healthcare as other developed countries already. You just have to nationalize the insurance companies, which can cost as much as you’d like. There a no law of physics preventing it.
Increasing taxes will just end up going to wasteful or corrupt things, like the weapons manufacture industry. It's not the solution the left is looking for. Need more regulation on government spending first. Then see if you need more tax income.
Oh we can do both at once.
Medicare Disadvantage Plans suck money out of the system from 3 different sides.
(1) They cost the government more money per patient than real Medicare
(2) They falsely denied 18% of valid claims according to Medicare's Inspector General. They also screw customers by denying people specialists , requiring prior approvals etc.
(3) They cost providers more money by increasing the manpower they need to get their payments by throwing up hassles.
"Medicare Brokers" get gigantic commissions (not just the first year but EVERY year someone is on the same plan) to push Medicare Disadvantage Plans on people who don't know any better.
Medicare Advantage insurers have for years been diagnosing patients with diseases they don't have, then pocketing the money for treatment. The treatment never actually happened because the patients didn't actually have the diseases. This WSJ report said that UHC specifically got HALF of its income from this fraud.
https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/medicare-health-insurance-diagnosis-payments-b4d99a5d
These companies thus make much of their profit by routinely denying claims — 1.5 million, or 18 percent of all claims, were turned down in one year alone
they profit when human beings literally suffer, and we have all collectively decided this is ok for some reason
That's what taxes are for: private gains, socialized losses. Mfs out here thinking taxes are for social infrastructure -- if social infrastructure isn't making a few wealthy individuals a lot of money, or guaranteed to do so, the government can't afford it.
That's nothing compared to the unaccountable trillions that disappear into the military-industrial complex
There is a also a SECOND medicare scam from the GOP for people who wisely avoid Medicare Disadvantage called "Accountable Care Organizations". The bottom line is that you cannot trust your primary doctor's advice on when to seek a specialist because they pay doctors to discourage you from seeking a specialist when you need one. They don't give you a choice about belonging to an ACO but they do have to notify you when they stick you in an ACO, so at least you know when your primary doctor has a financial incentive to discourage you from getting treatment.
https://surgerycenterok.com/blog/scam-series-pay-for-performance/
Just one?
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https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/medicare-advantage-scam/