Traditional Medicare is our nation’s most efficient and popular health care program. A failed effort to privatize it, the Direct Contracting (DC) program, devised by the Center for Medicare Service recently met with such grassroots opposition that it will be canceled at the end of 2022. But rather than protecting traditional Medicare, CMS has now announced a nearly identical privatization program called “ACO REACH” to start Jan. 1, 2023.
REACH retains all the most threatening elements of DC: investor-owned middlemen who can pocket up to 40% of Medicare payments as profit and overhead; automatic enrollment of up to 30 million beneficiaries without their full knowledge or consent, who must change providers to opt out; opportunities to increase profits by “upcoding” and restricting care; and the potential to expand privatization to all of traditional Medicare. Virtually any type of company can apply to REACH, from Wall Street investors to commercial insurers.
Additionally, REACH includes major giveaways, which lessen financial risk for health costs and quality, and more potential for profit at the expense of traditional Medicare.
If left unchecked, the REACH program could soon drain Medicare, without input from seniors or even a vote by Congress. Seniors can protect Medicare for future generations by calling their Congress members, especially Sen. Bennet who serves on the Senate Finance Committee, and ask them to pressure the Biden administration to stop this dangerous pilot program.
Joan MacEachen
Durango
