Dear Editor,

The corporate grab for Medicare (taxpayer) money continues in the shadows. A pilot program called REACH, initiated by the Trump Administration through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, contracts with third party insurance and private equity middlemen to “manage” care for seniors enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare.

For unnecessary and obstructive “management,” these middlemen can take 40 percent of the money that traditional Medicare provides directly to health care services.

Seniors, plus the millions of Americans about to turn 65, have never heard of REACH nor its inevitable transformation of Medicare from a much admired, nonprofit citizen benefit to one “managed” by Wall Street investors, which rations and restricts care for their own benefit and profitability. You may already be quietly enrolled in Realizing Equity Access in Community Health without your knowledge or consent, since it is not required nor is Congressional oversight.

Now, while REACH is still a “pilot,” this is the time to say NO to this corporate heist. Call your Congressional representative and Centers for Medicare. Write to AARP. Talk to your doctors. Tell your friends.

Lyn DelliQuadri

Kingston, N.Y.