{"id":218590,"date":"2021-06-27T09:39:55","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T09:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=207439"},"modified":"2021-06-27T11:39:55","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T11:39:55","slug":"the-privatization-of-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/06\/27\/the-privatization-of-medicare\/","title":{"rendered":"The Privatization of Medicare"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_207441\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-207441\" class=\"wp-image-207441 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/julia-zyablova-S1v7hVUiCg0-unsplash-680x453.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"453\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-207441\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@foyu\">Julia Zyablova<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>When you want to know if the US government, or the political party in charge, is pulling a fast one on the public, look at the name they give a new program or law. The USA PATRIOT Act is a classic example. An acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, that law, passed in November 2001 with no hearings, was actually a huge wishlist of a decade\u2019s worth of repressive and invasive assaults on the Bill of Rights pulled off Congressional shelves rushed through for President GW Bush\u2019s signature using the 9-11 attacks as justification.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to assaults on Medicare, the same thing happens. Medicare Advantage, originally called Medicare Choice, introduced in 1997 during the Clinton administration, got its even slippery monicker in 2003. It neither improves choice nor is an advantage. Presented to Medicare enrollees as a better option than the government\u2019s traditional Medicare Parts A and B and D, it actually reduces the choice of doctor and can leave patients without any protection from huge health costs or any ability to buy supplemental insurance.<\/p>\n<div class=\"woocommerce\">\n<div class=\"woocommerce-info wc-memberships-restriction-message wc-memberships-message wc-memberships-content-restricted-message\">\n\t\t\t\tTo read this article, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/my-account\/?wcm_redirect_to=post&#038;wcm_redirect_id=207439\">log in<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/subscribe\/\">or Subscribe.<\/a><br \/>\nIn order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.\t\t    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2021\/06\/27\/medicare-advantage-and-the-privatization-of-medicare\/\">More<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2021\/06\/27\/medicare-advantage-and-the-privatization-of-medicare\/\">The Privatization of Medicare<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/\">CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2021\/06\/27\/medicare-advantage-and-the-privatization-of-medicare\/\">CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image by Julia Zyablova.<\/p>\n<p>When you want to know if the US government, or the political party in charge, is pulling a fast one on the public, look at the name they give a new program or law. The USA PATRIOT Act is a classic example. An acronym for Unit&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":382,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,230],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/382"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218590"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219866,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218590\/revisions\/219866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}