{"id":756033,"date":"2022-07-22T11:07:53","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T11:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2022\/07\/amazon-one-medical-medicare-privatization\/"},"modified":"2022-07-22T18:32:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T18:32:19","slug":"amazon-is-getting-into-the-business-of-medicare-privatization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/07\/22\/amazon-is-getting-into-the-business-of-medicare-privatization\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Is Getting Into the Business of Medicare Privatization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Amazon has announced it is acquiring One Medical, a private equity\u2013backed primary care provider that generates most of its revenue from a for-profit Medicare program. It\u2019s a terrifying sign of Amazon\u2019s continued expansion and the privatization of Medicare.<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\n Jeff Bezos attends the 10th Annual LACMA Art+Film Gala presented by Gucci at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on November 6, 2021, in Los Angeles, California. (Axelle \/ Bauer-Griffin \/ FilmMagic via Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Amazon, the $1.25 trillion company founded and led by\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>owner Jeff Bezos, has announced that it is acquiring One Medical, a private equity\u2013backed<\/a> primary care provider that generates over half of its revenue from Medicare.<\/p>\n

While Amazon\u2019s profits from its core consumer retail business are\u00a0dwindling<\/a>, in part because of heightened competition from brick-and-mortar retailers that were shut down at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the corporation\u2019s cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, continues to enjoy\u00a0robust<\/a>\u00a0profits thanks in part to generous\u00a0government contracts<\/a>. Now Amazon could be attempting to build on that federal largesse by seeking to milk revenue from Medicare, the national health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

Amazon, which has broad market power, reach, and influence, could use its new platform to advance the cause of Medicare privatization at a much more aggressive pace. The consequences wouldn\u2019t just mean more taxpayer dollars funneled to the megacorporation but also Medicare recipients facing a health care system with ever more resources being allocated to profit instead of care.<\/p>\n

The deal must go through normal regulatory approval processes. Advocates have pledged to oppose it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon has no business being a major player in the health care space, and regulators should block this $4 billion deal to ensure it does not become one,\u201d said Krista Brown, a senior policy analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project, which advocates on antitrust issues, in a statement.<\/p>\n

She added in an interview, \u201cIt won\u2019t make Amazon the largest player in health care, but will further dissolve integrity that is already on shaky territory with the health care system.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we\u00a0<\/em>reported<\/a>\u00a0in April, President Joe Biden\u2019s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has expanded a Medicare privatization scheme launched under former President Donald Trump. That program, which is currently referred to as ACO REACH, involuntarily assigns Medicare patients to private health plans operated by for-profit companies, like One Medical subsidiary Iora Health.<\/p>\n

Medicare provides set payments to provide care for these patients, much like insurance. This arrangement incentivizes Iora and other privatization entities to limit the amount of care that seniors receive.<\/p>\n

Continued expansion of Medicare privatization seems integral to One Medical\u2019s business model.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s\u00a0most recent<\/a>\u00a0quarterly report shows that more than half of its revenue comes from Medicare. This includes Medicare Advantage plans operated by private health insurers, traditional Medicare fee-for-service payments, and the ACO REACH program.<\/p>\n

One Medical\u2019s most recent annual report\u00a0notes<\/a>, \u201cA significant portion of our revenue comes from government health care programs, principally Medicare,\u201d including specifically the ACO REACH privatization model.<\/p>\n

The filing adds, \u201cAny changes that limit or reduce the [ACO REACH model or] Medicare Advantage could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many mergers, both parties in Amazon\u2019s new acquisition benefit from the arrangement. Amazon gets a more stable revenue source just as its retail segment is faltering, while One Medical gets Amazon and Bezos\u2019s considerable political power. That power has led Congress to seriously consider granting Bezos a\u00a0$10 billion<\/a> subsidy for his Blue Origin space exploration boondoggle and has led Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to\u00a0stall<\/a> on holding a vote to hold a vote on bipartisan antitrust legislation being championed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).<\/p>\n

Amazon has a suite of powerful lobbyists at its disposal,\u00a0including<\/a>\u00a0the lobbying firm run by the brother of Steve Ricchetti, who is the counselor to the president. The tech giant is the\u00a0eighth-highest<\/a>\u00a0spender on lobbying in the country this year, according to data collected by OpenSecrets.<\/p>\n

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has led the charge against the ACO REACH model. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)\u00a0said<\/a> in May:<\/p>\n

The ACO REACH program is Medicare privatization, hidden in layers of bureaucracy. Essentially, seniors are put into this program, which allows a profit-seeking third party like a health insurer or private equity\u2013backed firm to step in and get paid by Medicare to manage the care that they get. Taking for themselves the profit that is whatever they don\u2019t want to spend on the patient.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But despite opposition from progressives, Biden, Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra, and CMS administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure have resisted this pressure and continued to implement the program.<\/p>\n

Observers also have concerns about the privacy impacts of Amazon acquiring One Medical.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllowing Amazon to control the health care data for another 700,000+ individuals is terrifying,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a> Brown at the American Economic Liberties Project. \u201cIt will also pose serious risks to patients whose sensitive data will be captured by a firm whose own Chief Information Security Officer once\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0access to customer data as \u2018a free-for-all.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n

You can subscribe to David Sirota\u2019s investigative journalism project, the\u00a0Lever<\/i>,\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon, the $1.25 trillion company founded and led by\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0owner Jeff Bezos, has announced that it is acquiring One Medical, a private equity\u2013backed primary care provider that generates over half of its revenue from Medicare. While Amazon\u2019s profits from its core consumer retail business are\u00a0dwindling, in part because of heightened competition from brick-and-mortar retailers that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756033"}],"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\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756033"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":756562,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756033\/revisions\/756562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}