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New York City has kept a covenant with its workers: your wages will be modest — lower than those of your counterparts in the suburbs or the private sector — but as a full-time employee you will be entitled to health care coverage without premiums.

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While a big victory, Medicare did not provide full coverage for all services, and from its inception, there has been a drive to privatize and hand it over to profiteers. With privatization, profits ensue as additional restrictions are imposed.....

As yet another scandal involving Medicare Advantage made headlines this week, progressive U.S. lawmakers and advocates renewed calls to abolish the private health insurance program.

AARP, the advocacy organization is welcoming the for-profit takeover of its members’ national health insurance program — because it earns hundreds of millions as part of the deal.

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In the 1960s, more than a third of seniors lived in poverty. Federal programs like Medicare to help the elderly, the situation improved significantly. But last year, the poverty rate for those 65 or older increased, even as it sank for everyone else.

"The move to privatize Medicare," said one expert, has "been very profitable, in part because insurers are good at making their patients seem sicker."

Thank the people who put their bodies on the line to block new fossil fuel infrastructure – without their grassroots embargo of the Mountain Valley pipeline, for instance, Schumer might not have had the leverage to finally coax Manchin on board.