CommonDreams reports in “Congress ‘Asleep at the Switch’ as Biden Continues Trump-Era Ploy to Privatize Medicare” that “More than 1,500 physicians warn that the experiment threatens ‘the future of Medicare as we know it.'”

KAY TILLOW, nursenpo@aol.com
    Tillow is chair of Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care. She warned of the dangers of Direct Contracting Entities (DCEs) like Humana using “capitation” which provides an “incentive against giving care.”

    The Kentucky group works with Physicians for a National Healthcare Program and helped organize the signers.

    The groups explain: “Under a Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) program now underway, more than 30 million seniors and disabled who chose traditional Medicare could be placed into largely investor-owned Direct Contracting Entities (DCEs) without the beneficiaries’ understanding or consent. We must not allow hedge fund managers to oversee our health care.

    “DCEs are yet another scheme to privatize Medicare. Like Medicare Advantage plans sold by the big insurers, the DCE program threatens traditional Medicare, and is designed to thwart the system our nation desperately needs — a publicly funded, improved Medicare for All.”

    Tillow and other activists are organizing protests, including at the Louisville, Kentucky headquarters of the for-profit insurer Humana, on Dec. 11.