Donald Trump promises he will
“not cut one penny” of Medicare,
but like most elected Republicans he’s a strong proponent of #Medicare #privatization.

During his first administration, Trump issued an executive order that said #Medicare #Advantage,
the privatized version of Medicare,
“delivers efficient and value-based care through choice and private competition.”

#Mehmet #Oz, the TV doctor Trump nominated to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
disparages traditional Medicare and has called for massive expansion of Medicare Advantage.
By remarkable coincidence, as of 2022 ➡️Oz owned a reported stake of $550,000 in UnitedHealth,⬅️ Medicare Advantage’s largest participant.

There are many things the private sector does better than the federal government, -- among them enriching shareholders like Oz.
But the private sector does not provide health care more efficiently than the public sector.
That’s been demonstrated over and over, yet nobody wants to believe it.

A reportpublished Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal
summarizing a year’s worth of its investigations
indicates that where Medicare Advantage really excels is in the filing of #fraudulent #claims.

Congress created Medicare Advantage in 1997
to demonstrate for good and all, damn it, that the market economy could be more cost-effective at delivering doctor and hospital care.
The privatization program succeeded in winning over the public:
54 percent of the Medicare-eligible population chooses Medicare Advantage.
Medicare Advantage looks to people over 65 like a better deal because it covers things traditional Medicare doesn’t,
such as visits to the dentist or the eye doctor. Some plans even cover acupuncture.
⚠️But if you get seriously ill and need to be referred to a specialist, Medicare Advantage isn’t so great.
An April 2022 study by the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general found that
💥13 percent of the referrals denied under Medicare Advantage would have been approved under traditional Medicare.

Medicare Advantage also shows that health care privatization is a lousy deal for taxpayers.
💥Medicare Advantage costs the federal government 7 percent more per enrollee than traditional Medicare, according to an August 2024 study by the fiscally conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
For enrollees with similar health profiles, Medicare Advantage costs 22 percent more, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

Perhaps that’s because, as the Journal’s investigations found, Medicare Advantage insurers routinely
pad their government reimbursement requests with #spurious #diagnoses.
For example, an astounding 66,000 Medicare Advantage patients were diagnosed with diabetic cataracts
even after these patients had surgery to correct them,
making that diagnosis, in the Journal’s words, “anatomically impossible.”
In other instances, patients whom Medicare Advantage insurers reported as HIV positive received none of the recommended treatments.
If a doctor failed to furnish a desired diagnosis, insurers dispatched a nurse to the patient’s home to find one.
Medicare Advantage insurers also conned veterans into enrolling in the program even though they were already covered adequately by the Veterans Administration health system, which has repeatedly been demonstrated to be superior to private hospital care (something else the public is reluctant to believe).

UnitedHealth, the parent company of United Healthcare, whose chief executive, Brian Thompson, was assassinated last month, is, according to the Journal, a particular offender,
furnishing doctors with checklists of possible diagnoses.
Looking at Medicare data between 2019 and 2022, the Journal found that patients who moved from traditional Medicare to UnitedHealth’s Medicare Advantage plans
“got 55 percent sicker, on paper” during their first year in Medicare Advantage.
(UnitedHealth replied in a written statement that it provided “more accurate diagnoses” and alleged, without providing evidence, that the Journal’s reporting method was flawed)

https://newrepublic.com/article/189804/privatizing-medicare-advantage-scam-claims-fraudulent?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SF_TNR&utm_source=Twitter

It seems to me that people these days are more prone to share something they themselves just saw or learned instead of what they've already known or liked.

Don't like it.

#spurious #speculative #behavior #SocialMedia #crossedarms #oldmanyellsatcloud #quietly

#Rightwing #media use #CassReview #Report to #justify #violence against #parents of #trans #youth.

The 400-page report has been #scrutinised by #experts and #activists who say that it is either taking the #wrongapproach to #trans #healthcare or uses #spurious #research to #justify its #conclusions.

#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #UK #Conservatives #Extremism #Fascism #Tories #TERFS #NHS #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #Genocide #Discrimination #Transphobia #TERFIsland

https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/04/30/cass-report-violence-against-parents/

How to spot misinformation, mistakes, and meaningless data

(How not to be fooled by viral charts - by Noah Smith)

“The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.” — Lenin

🔗 https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/how-not-to-be-fooled-by-viral-charts

#misinterpretation #mistaks #influencers #data #Spurious #correlation #statistics

Not a lot of people know that the custard cream biscuit was originally called the Maybon to link it with its sister biscuit, the Bourbon. The bourbon was named after the ancient Frankish spring equinox festival & the Maybon was named after the ancient Celtic autumn equinox. This was an early example of twinning to promote cultural harmony. Both of these festivals involved copious amounts of baked goods & a herbal infusion mixed with milk.

#spurious #notRealHistory #Mabon

பீகார் மாநிலத்தில் 14 உயிரைக் குடித்த கள்ளச்சாராயம்
https://patrikai.com/14-died-at-bihar-due-to-illicit-liquor/ via @[email protected]

#Bihar #SpuriousLiquor #Spurious #Alcohol #illicit #liquor #death