The right-wing policy agenda written for a new Donald Trump presidency would “greatly accelerate” efforts to privatize Medicare

Last year, for the first time ever, a majority of Americans eligible for Medicare were on privatized Medicare Advantage plans. If Republicans win the presidential race this year, the push to fully privatize Medicare, the government health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities, will only intensify.

Conservative operatives have already sketched out what the GOP’s policy agenda would look like in the early days of a new Donald Trump presidency. As Rolling Stone has detailed, the proposed Project 2025 agenda is radically right-wing. One item buried in the 887-page blueprint has attracted little attention thus far, but would have a monumental impact on the health of America’s seniors and the future of one of America’s most popular social programs: a call to “make Medicare Advantage the default enrollment option” for people who are newly eligible for Medicare.

Such a policy would hasten the end of the traditional Medicare program, as well as its foundational premise: that seniors can go to any doctor or provider they choose. The change would be a boon for private health insurers — which generate massive profits and growing portions of their revenues from Medicare Advantage plans — and further consolidate corporate control over the United States health care system.

  • @[email protected]
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    310 months ago

    So the plan is to allow it because fighting against it is hard?

    Democrats are really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this “we’re less terrible than them” attitude.

    Do better.

    • @uienia
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      410 months ago

      You are building a massive strawman here. You are the one claiming that Democrats won’t stop them, even though they absolutely will if able to.

    • @dumpsterlid
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      10 months ago

      Do better

      I mean I have thought about it but honestly my sex life with my wife is totally dead and passionless and the only thing that gets me going anymore is being condescending towards progressives who have the nerve to try to change the world for better.

      I don’t mean to be such a wet blanket, but you have to understand I don’t have anything else. Plus if I admitted progressives were right that would put my entire world view into question and honestly I am too old to be an evolving person with views that change and grow. Why do I, ME, have to KEEP changing my views, can’t the world just settle on a status quo and just keep it that way? It stresses me out and I don’t think minorities are thinking about that stress when they push for progressive societal change that benefits all.

      In the same way that you would find it hard to jump into a cold lake, a world where other people are treated as equal to white men (me) is like jumping into a cold lake. You can judge me for endorsing structural violence and racism but the water is just so cold and no one cares about my feelings. I’m not used to having feelings, I am a man stranded in a terrifying and strange landscape and I need desperate people fighting for their lives and their loved one’s lives to just slowwww down and be more patient while I tip toe in.

      I am not racist but

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      Well it’s all your fault for allowing Democrats to be that way. It doesn’t matter if you protest or don’t vote for idiots. You did this and we all blame you despite spending years of your life fighting against it.

      (Do you see how insane this sounds?)