Learn about the reach into Medicare
Millions of us seniors and Medicare beneficiaries are quietly being enrolled into a pilot program called “Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (REACH) https://youtu.be/zvWyqLG2gcM. This program is administered by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services which contracts with third-party middlemen. This is occurring without our full knowledge or consent. If left unchecked, the REACH program could radically transform traditional Medicare within a few years, without input from us and without any Congressional oversight.
This program was developed by the previous administration and moving forward in the current administration, the REACH program allows commercial insurers and other for-profit companies to “manage” care for seniors enrolled in Traditional (fee-for-service) Medicare. Instead of paying doctors and hospitals directly for seniors’ care, Medicare gives corporate middlemen a monthly payment to cover a defined portion of each senior’s medical expenses. REACH investor entities are then allowed to keep what they don’t pay for in health services, a dangerous financial incentive to restrict and ration seniors’ care. While Traditional Medicare requires 98 percent of its budget to be spent on patient care, REACH requires only 60 percent, thereby allowing up to 40 percent of the payment received from Medicare to be used for their own profit and overhead. According to Dr. Susan Rogers, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhGtZMZIvVE, a retired internal medicine doctor and president of the 24,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program, “this establishes a dangerous incentive to ration and restrict seniors’ care; if left unchecked, REACH will hand Traditional Medicare to Wall Street investors, without input from seniors, doctors, or even Congress.”
When I learned about this program, I called fellow Medicare recipients and they had not heard about this. One of those fellow recipients called their doctor and was told their doctor was now part of this “network.” That seemed harmless enough but then learned that if she would not be able to choose other doctors out of the network, like I can with Traditional Medicare. After reading more, I called our Congressman in January and learned that at that point in time, the staff hadn’t heard about it. I have since contacted our US Senators and the Biden administration and haven’t received any indication that they know about the REACH program concerns. Consequently, I am turning to the public to learn about this program. Do some research (see the Physicians for a National Health Program/pnhp.org) and talk with your neighbor. At my end, I and fellow seniors from Ulster Activists and Indivisible Ulster will continue following this program to advocate for its termination. I encourage others to do the same. REACH will not realize equity, nor access nor community health. It will limit our choices of doctors and divert Medicare dollars away from our care and into the profit pockets of corporations.
Maggie Veve
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