Portside

Reader Comments: MAGA Divide - Round One to The Plutocracy; GOP Plan To Dismantle Pro-Palestinian Movement; Chanukah Is Choice Between Life and Death; Resource - World-Changing Impact Of Vaccines; Cartoons; and more....

The TV doctor’s scams and fake cures are the least of what makes him so dangerous as Trump’s appointee to head Medicare and Medicaid. During the campaign, Trump and his surrogates went out of their way to claim that they had no plans to cut Medicare.

The most successful health insurance program, Medicare, was enacted in July,1965 to provide health insurance for people ages 65 and older and disabled regardless of income or medical history. Medicare is more efficient than private health insurance

Last year, the federal government spent $20.5 billion overpaying private insurers for Medicare Advantage plans — and the industry’s aggressive lobbying campaign is kneecapping efforts by lawmakers to stop the scheme.

New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee voted March 9 to scrap some of the best retiree health care coverage in the country. The change would put 250,000 city retirees into a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan run by Aetna.

The Medicare privatization program "presents a threat to the integrity of traditional Medicare, and an opportunity for corporations to take money from taxpayers while denying care to beneficiaries," said Physicians for a National Health Program.