A new Medicare privatization model developed under President Donald Trump and now being expanded under President Joe Biden is forcing hundreds of thousands of seniors onto private Medicare plans without their consent. Many patients chose Medicare Advantage (MA) plans that allow for-profit health insurers to offer privatized benefits through Medicare. However, patients who chose to stay in Traditional Medicare (TM) are being enrolled in these Direct Contracting Entities (DCE) health care plans without their informed consent.

Since the DCEs can keep up to 40% of your premium, depending on how much of it they don’t spend on your medical care, will that be an incentive for them to deny services?

Our speaker tonight lives in Amherst and is a member of the Movement to End the Privatization of Medicare. Barbara Pearson is a retired university research associate and a lifelong fighter for social justice. She’s the chair of her local LWV health care committee and on the steering committee for the League’s national Health Care Reform network. She is a Board member of One Payer States,and a member of Masscare.org