Letter from our Chair, Dr. George Bohmfalk

Dear members and friends of Health Care Justice•NC,

It’s already been a pretty eventful year for Medicare for All advocacy. While there’s almost no possibility of a bill being passed with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a Senate filibuster, we still have many opportunities to advance the issue for later success.

Our principal effort is to educate the public about Medicare for All, which we most effectively do through in-person presentations to various groups. To commemorate the pioneering work of our founder, Dr. Jessica Schorr Saxe, we compiled a brief history of HCJ•NC that includes a list of groups to whom we've given presentations. If your groups are not on the list, please invite us, or invite us back! We'll go anywhere to spread the word about the many genuine advantages of Medicare for All.

Lately, we have focused on the threat to the privatization of Medicare through Medicare Advantage (MA - better called Medicare DISadvantage) and a “stealth” move to shift patients into corporate-run healthcare plans called ACO/REACH, which you can learn about here. We have two significant victories to celebrate:

• In January, during a presentation to the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) Board, the Director of the CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) casually mentioned (at 1:58 in the YouTube recording) that, in contrast to their initial plan to convert every enrollee in traditional Medicare to a managed care plan by 2030, they had FROZEN the ACO/REACH program and will not accept any more organizations (ACOs) or “align” any more patients (2.1M) than are already in this insidious program. Heaven knows what scheme they may come up with to replace ACO/REACH next year, but this certainly reflects heavy pressure from PNHP and allied advocacy groups on HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to stop this privatization program. 
• For several years, the deceptively-named Better Medicare Alliance, a lobbying group for the private insurance companies selling Medicare Advantage plans has circulated a “love letter” on Capitol Hill that majorities of both Houses had signed, urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to continue paying MA insurers more per enrollee than they pay for Original Medicare. We were very annoyed that several cosponsors of both the House and Senate Medicare for All bills, who should know better, had regularly signed these, probably unaware of what they were adding their support to. This year several healthcare advocacy groups including HCJ•NC encouraged Members of Congress to NOT sign this annual letter. We were a little late for the Senate, whose letter was released January 30 with fewer signers than before. But after waiting to see who signed the House letter, we learned that “So many legislators would have dropped from the House letter that the insurance industry has declined to circulate one.” That’s a major blow to this powerful lobby, and one that we can feel powerfully proud about. We literally shut down one of their major marketing tools. Thanks to everyone who contacted their representatives. Together, we really can make a difference!

We hope that these developments may slow the tide of Medicare privatization but know that we need to stay on constant alert to avoid “Medicare Advantage for All” becoming our nation’s national healthcare system, with restricted choice of doctors and hospitals and unnecessarily high administrative costs, including big profits to corporations that would own and run it.

The new Medicare for All bills were introduced in both the House - HR 3421 - and Senate  - S.1655 - on May 17 with more initial cosponsors than ever before. We hope you’ll help us encourage more Members of Congress to add their names in support; use the list here to call their offices and email their healthcare Legislative Aides. Even though I'm not his constituent, GA Senator Jon Ossoff graciously met with me in Washington and said that, while he strongly supports a universal healthcare system, he has reservations about the current proposal. But he listened, and perhaps he'll change his mind. Call your Members today, and either thank them for already supporting Medicare for All or tell them why they should. Your voice matters!

George Bohmfalk, MD