Well, not exactly. It appears that big business cannot even operate without handouts from the government to ensure their obscene profits. The government still subsidizes Medicare private insurance plans:
... study after study, by MedPAC, the Congressional Budget Office, the Commonwealth Fund, and numerous scholars, show that taxpayers are paying at least 12% more to private plans than would be paid for the same beneficiaries in traditional Medicare. The Congressional Budget Offices estimates that these subsidies will cost taxpayers $54 billion over the next five years and $149 billion dollars over the next ten years. As former Medicare Administrator Bruce Vladeck has said, the experiment with privatizing Medicare has not saved Medicare a nickel. [Give The Real Medicare Program A Chance, USA]
Get that? I'll repeat it: " ... the experiment with privatizing Medicare has not saved Medicare a nickel."
But then the Republican goal was not to save Medicare any money. The goal was to destroy Medicare.
The Medicare Part D drug plan was also set up with subsidies to ensure even more profit for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. In addition the government by law cannot negotiate drug prices for medicare. So those who financially support our government (that us, the rich don't pay anymore) are paying twice, at least. First we pay the insurance companies extra in order to guarantee they will make obscene profits. Then we pay (directly or through an insurance provider) whatever the drug companies decide they want to extract out of the American consumer for their obscene profits. Oh, and if you are on Medicare Part D there is always the potential that you will be fleeced a third time with the bait-and-switch program built into the legislation. Legislation written by the pharmaceutical industry and probably not even read by your Congress Critter.
The article quoted above has this to say about AARP's entrance into the Medicare Advantage Insurance market:
Unfortunately, AARP's entrance into the private Medicare market provides a major boost to the privatization of Medicare. It also significantly reduces the organization's ability to speak as an objective voice for the interests of Medicare beneficiaries and the future of Medicare. The Center for Medicare Advocacy's mission is to advance fair access to Medicare and health care. Private Medicare is not best for beneficiaries and it's more expensive for taxpayers. Based on these standards and the history of Medicare, we can not support the privatization of Medicare, and we regret AARP's decision to do so.I agree. Democrats had better start working on universal health care coverage. Letting the insurance companies chip away at this is disastrous. It can only get worse when greed is the sole motivation of these entities.
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