Jake Johnson

( Commondreams.org ) – Patients on Medicare Advantage spoke out against the privatized plans this week as part of a coordinated campaign to shed light on the program’s care denials, treatment delays, and overbilling—and to pressure U.S. President Joe Biden to rein in the insurance giants raking in huge profits from such abuses.

“These corporations do nothing to increase positive outcomes in medical care. So don’t fall for their bullshit,” Jenn Coffey, a retired EMT from New Hampshire, said during a livestream hosted by People’s Action on Wednesday night.

The stream featured testimony from several patients who have experienced the kinds of delays and denials for which Medicare Advantage is notorious.

Rick Timmins of Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action said it took five months and “multiple calls and emails” for his insurance company to approve his referral to a dermatologist for a suspicious lump on his earlobe that turned out to be malignant melanoma. The delay stemmed from a byzantine process known as prior authorization, whereby doctors are required to prove a treatment is necessary before an insurer will cover it.

By the time his referral to a specialist was approved, Timmins said, the previously tiny lump “had tripled in size” and was “quite painful.”

Coffey, for her part, ended up on a UnitedHealth Medicare Advantage plan after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013. She later developed two rare diseases—including complex regional pain syndrome—and required expensive treatments that her Medicare Advantage plan refused to cover.

“If Medicare Advantage has it their way, they’re going to deny me care and delay me care until I’m dead,” Coffey, a healthcare advocate, said in a video published Thursday by the advocacy group Be A Hero as part of a social media day of action against the for-profit plans.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

“They only make money when they don’t have to spend it on you,” said Coffey.

Once enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, patients often find it difficult to get out.

“They like to tell you: ‘Medicare Advantage numbers are so high, can’t you tell people love it?'” said Coffey, alluding to the fact that more than half of all eligible Medicare beneficiaries are now enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. “No, we don’t. We’re stuck. It’s the Hotel California: You can check in, but you can’t get the hell out.”

Next month, the Biden administration is expected to finalize 2025 payment rates for Medicare Advantage, which is funded by the federal government. Medicare Advantage plans frequently overbill the government by making patients appear sicker than they are.

An analysis released last year by Physicians for a National Health Program estimated that Medicare Advantage plans are overcharging U.S. taxpayers by as much as $140 billion per year—an amount that could be used to completely eliminate Medicare Part B premiums or fully fund Medicare’s prescription drug program.

Patients and advocacy groups are calling on Biden to “not fork over more money for insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare,” as Coffey put it during Wednesday’s livestream.

A petition sponsored by Social Security Works urges Biden to “reclaim Medicare” from Medicare Advantage providers, which “have delayed and denied care to millions of Americans in order to turn a massive profit.”

“Medicare Advantage isn’t really Medicare, and it isn’t an advantage to the seniors and people with disabilities who rely on the program,” reads the petition, which has over 22,800 signatures as of this writing. “In the 25 years that it has existed, it’s clear that Medicare Advantage is riddled with the same problems as the rest of private insurance: Opaque bureaucracy and extraordinary fees. Seniors who enroll in these for-profit plans are being price-gouged by massive corporations.”

The Biden administration has proposed a 3.7% payment increase for Medicare Advantage in 2025—a change that insurers have portrayed as a cut. But Social Security Works noted in response to the industry’s complaints that “MA companies are not hurting for profits.”

“In 2022 alone, seven healthcare companies that comprise 70% of the MA market brought in over $1 trillion in total revenue and over $69 billion in profits, and spent $26.2 billion on stock buybacks,” the group observed. “These same companies claim that if the government doesn’t increase their already bloated payment rates, they will have no choice but to slash benefits for patients. This is false, and should be seen for what it is—MA plans holding patients hostage to extort the government for profits.”

In an op-ed for STAT last month, former insurance industry insider Wendell Potter—who is now an outspoken critic of private insurers—and John A. Burns School of Medicine professor professor Philip Verhoef wrote that “private plans have no business administering Medicare benefits.”

“Traditional Medicare is already more efficient than its private counterpart, in large part because the approval process is much simpler and there aren’t the same incentives to upcode,” the pair wrote. “Traditional Medicare spends far less of its funds on administrative overhead, and overall it spends less money per patient than Medicare Advantage while providing far superior access to doctors, hospitals, and treatments.”

“Medicare Advantage isn’t working for any group: the government, patients, taxpayers, and now even investors,” they added. “It’s time to turn to what we already know works. We need to support and strengthen traditional Medicare.”

( Commondreams.org ) – Recently, there have been troubling revelations about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — a leading 2024 GOP presidential aspirant — concerning his conduct as a Navy JAG officer at Guantanamo Bay. His responsibilities at the detention facility apparently included responding to claims of mistreatment from the war-on-terror prisoners there. Relatively few of these detainees had any connection with al Qaeda, and many had simply been handed over to US forces in exchange for bounty payments. But DeSantis seemingly viewed them all as wily and unrepentant terrorists.

Of particular note, DeSantis was at Guantanamo in 2006 during the brutal forced-feeding of prisoners engaged in a mass hunger strike. Years later, DeSantis acknowledged that, as a legal advisor, he had suggested this intervention as a countermeasure to what he described as the detainees’ “waging jihad” — by refusing to eat. When interviewed last month, DeSantis emphasized that he “didn’t have authority to authorize anything” and that Guantanamo was “a professionally-run prison.” His first claim — sidestepping personal responsibility — may contain elements of truth; his second is outrageously absurd.

As a general matter, the forced-feeding of mentally competent individuals violates international standards of medical ethics and constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment. This was especially so in the case of the Department of Defense, which opted to employ extreme, punitive measures — even described as torture by United Nations investigators — when force-feeding the prisoners at Guantanamo. These measures included a restraint chair that immobilized the detainee’s entire body for hours at a time, and the use of tubing that was inserted through the nose into the stomach and then removed and reinserted multiple times each day, often causing sharp pain and bleeding. A defense attorney for Guantanamo prisoners subjected to forced-feeding has written, “Only a sadist could impose and witness such treatment without grave concern and soul-sickness.” It’s hard to argue with that blunt assessment. But there are also two larger truths we shouldn’t overlook.

First, even though DeSantis has disingenuously characterized the detainees as master manipulators who all claimed to be “Koran salesmen,” the hunger strikers were actually protesting an unconscionable system of indefinite detention and ruthless interrogation that relied on daily abuse — solitary confinement, physical beatings, sexual humiliation, and more. This routinized cruelty didn’t solely involve guards and interrogators. It also depended upon guidance from health professionals,who seemingly abandoned their fundamental “Do No Harm” principles to accommodate a White House insistent that the prisoners had no entitlement to humane treatment.

Vice News Video from 2017: “Guantanamo Ex-Detainees Talk Through Their Past Torture (HBO)”

These abusive conditions and techniques have left many Guantanamo prisoners —past and present — with deep psychic wounds. Survivors of torture often experience overwhelming feelings of shame, helplessness, and disconnection as a result of having been subjected to mistreatment at the hands of another human being. Frequently, the victims of such traumas are also haunted by depression, anxiety, and PTSD; by nightmares and flashbacks; and by a lasting sense that safety and solace will never be achieved. Viewed from this perspective, the hunger strikes that DeSantis witnessed — and apparently dismissed as terrorist tactics — are better understood as the prisoners’ desperate and despairing attempts to regain some semblance of control over their lives and circumstances, even at the risk of starvation.

The second larger truth is this: accountability for Guantanamo’s horrors has never been a priority for our country’s elected leaders. No US president has ever taken meaningful steps on this front. George W. Bush, of course, never sought to discipline those responsible for the torturous policies his own administration authorized. Barrack Obama took action to end torture — but when it came to accountability, he decided “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” Donald Trump clearly had no interest in such matters, promising instead to bring back waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse.” And although Joe Biden has expressed a desire to close Guantanamo, he’s now building a second, multi-million-dollar courtroom there for military commission prosecutions in which detainees have limited due process rights.

So then how does Ron DeSantis’s alleged up-close-and-personal connections to prisoner abuse years ago really matter? It would be naïve to think that his political prospects will suffer. Indeed, he may even gain in popularity among voters who embrace his authoritarian mindset, share his disdain for protecting the rights of the vulnerable, and believe his misleading characterizations of the prison and the prisoners at Guantanamo.

But the attention DeSantis’s story has brought to Guantanamo can still do some good. Ideally, it can spark broader public interest in an examination of the facility’s shameful 21-year history: how its detention and interrogation operations have dishonored the values this country has long professed to hold dear; how the prisoners there became defenseless victims of state vengeance run amok; how the perpetrators of torture and abuse — and their masters — have eluded any form of accountability; and how essential it is to close Guantanamo and throw away the key.

By Michael Schwalbe | – (Commondreams.org ) – A sad fact of jurisprudence in an unequal world is that good laws created to promote justice are often used perversely by the powerful to thwart justice. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is a prime example. Originally intended to combat discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, the law is misused today to quash pro-Palestinian speech and speech critical of Israel on university campuses.

Protection from discrimination under Title VI extends to individuals and groups defined by shared ancestry, or by citizenship or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity. On university campuses, responsibility for enforcement of Title VI, except for complaints citing discrimination based on religion, falls to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Education.

Under the law, complaints are warranted when students in a protected category experience severe, pervasive, and persistent harassment that creates a hostile environment that impedes their ability to learn. Examples of what the OCR considers harassment include the use of ethnic slurs, mocking of foreign accents, speech, or names, and acts of physical intimidation linked to ethnic stereotypes.

If an OCR investigation finds that a university has failed to prevent systematic discrimination or allowed severe, pervasive, and persistent harassment to flourish, the university can lose federal funding. Which means that Title VI has teeth; it can help ensure that all students have a fair opportunity to learn. This is the justice-seeking goal of the law.

Unfortunately, Title VI has also been weaponized to silence speech that supports Palestinian rights or criticizes Israel. This has been going on for at least twenty years, and is happening now more than ever. Since October 7, 2023, the Education Department’s OCR has received 33 complaints alleging discrimination based on shared ancestry involving a college or university, according to Inside Higher Ed. Many, though not all, of these complaints have come from partisans of Israel.

These complaints typically cite instances of pro-Palestinian speech or speech critical of Israel as “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students,” and therefore as violations of Title VI. Examples of incidents cited in complaints include accusing Israel of practicing apartheid, advocating for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, showing the film “Israelism,” hosting speakers who criticize Israeli state policies, protesting speakers who represent the Israeli government, students chanting pro-Palestinian slogans at rallies, and offhand classroom remarks by professors critical of Israel.

Students should never suffer discrimination or harassment based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin. That’s the problem Title VI was meant to address. For this purpose, it remains a valuable tool.

An important thing to know about these complaints is that, after full investigation, they are consistently dismissed.

The principal reason for dismissal is that the incidents cited as “harassment” are in fact obvious instances of permissible free speech. As the presiding judge wrote in a decision resolving a 2011 case at UC-Berkeley, “A very substantial portion of the conduct to which [the complainants] object represents pure political speech and expressive conduct, in a public setting, regarding matters of public concern, which is entitled to special protection under the First Amendment.”

In 2021, the OCR strongly asserted that Title VI enforcement shall not “diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment.” And to its credit, the OCR has generally abided by this principle over the years, ultimately rejecting complaints that target free speech. But these failures haven’t stopped partisans of Israel from continuing to file suits under Title VI. They carry on because prompting an investigation is consequential.

University administrators understandably want to avoid the reputational damage that can come from being subject to a civil rights investigation, and so they will often accept resolution agreements that admit no fault but make promises to do better at responding to any campus occurrences that could be construed as antisemitic, anti-Israel, or as making Jewish students feel unsafe.

The Young Turks Video: “Pro-Palestinian Protestors Report Chemical Spray Attack At Columbia University”

In the shadow of these agreements, administrators often begin to aggressively monitor campus activities that might draw further negative attention. Administrators may then also look for ways to mute the speech—meaning pro-Palestinian speech or speech critical of Israel—that they see as causing the trouble. Common tactics of suppression include requiring “balance” when pro-Palestinian speakers are brought to campus, insisting that organizers of pro-Palestinian events pay prohibitively high fees for security, and, in extreme cases, suspending pro-Palestinian student groups, making it impossible for them to hold events on campus.

The threat of reputational damage can likewise affect other members of a campus community. Students, faculty, and staff may be deterred from speaking out in support of Palestinian rights, criticizing Israel, or joining groups that support Palestinian liberation, for fear of being labeled antisemitic, accused of discrimination, or involved in a civil rights suit. So even without repressive administrative action, free speech and association in support of Palestinian rights can be chilled.

We don’t need to guess about the motives of pro-Israel bullies. Proponents of the complaint-filing strategy can be surprisingly unabashed about what they’re up to. For instance, Kenneth Marcus, founder and current leader of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, explained how the strategy is supposed to work.

“These [Title VI cases],” Marcus wrote in a 2013 op-ed in The Jerusalem Post, “even when rejected expose administrators to bad publicity. … [I]t hurts them with donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students.” Students, too, are a target, Marcus admitted. “We are creating a very strong disincentive for outrageous behavior by students. … Needless to say, getting caught up in a civil rights complaint is not a good way to build a resume or impress a future employer.” Could the intent to suppress speech be any clearer?

As noted, the strategy of misusing Title VI to chill speech critical of Israel is being pursued with new vigor. In the current political climate, this is hard for the Department of Education to resist. But resist it should, as Palestinian rights organizations have long urged, or else free speech in the university stands to be greatly harmed. A case now pending at UNC-Chapel Hill suggests how expedited disposition of politically motivated Title VI complaints could help to prevent this harm.

The complaint against UNC was filed in December, 2023, after a New York-based attorney, David E. Weisberg, learned of two incidents on the North Carolina campus. In one incident, a pro-Palestinian speaker on a seven-person panel titled, “No Peace Without Justice: A Round-Table Talk on Social Justice in Palestine,” praised the ingenuity displayed by Hamas fighters on October 7 and refused to apologize for the violence used to break out of what she called, referring to Gaza, a “concentration camp.”

The other incident allegedly occurred in October, 2023, in a class on rhetoric and public issues. According to the complaint, the professor remarked on one occasion that Israel and the United States “do not give a shit about international law or war crimes.” Later, amidst Israel’s assault on Gaza, the professor reportedly described Israel as “a clearly fascist state committing genocide under the guise of it supposedly being the only democracy in the Middle East.”

No doubt these blunt remarks might unsettle students who embrace the glowing image of itself that Israel tries to project to the world. But having one’s beliefs challenged is part of what higher education ought to entail. And remarks critical of a state, remarks protected by principles of free speech and academic freedom, cannot fairly be seen as actionable harassment under Title VI.

Weisberg, the complainant, invoked the contentiously broad definition of antisemitism advanced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) to label these incidents antisemitic, further alleging that the incidents created a hostile educational environment for students of Jewish descent who “entertain positive feelings toward the modern State of Israel.” The Department of Education’s OCR agreed to investigate.

Even though the OCR expressly states that agreeing to investigate a complaint is not a judgment of a complaint’s merits, doing so nonetheless appears sufficiently validating to give a legal bully a partial victory. In the UNC case, the incidents cited in the complaint are protected expressive speech, and by no means amount to severe, pervasive, and persistent harassment. As with similar complaints that have been filed over the years, this one will be investigated and almost certainly dismissed.

No doubt these blunt remarks might unsettle students who embrace the glowing image of itself that Israel tries to project to the world. But having one’s beliefs challenged is part of what higher education ought to entail.

For now, though, the university must deal with the investigation, and administrators will feel pressure to resolve the complaint, perhaps agreeing—as on a previous occasion—to be more alert and responsive to anything on campus construable as antisemitic, no matter how far-fetched such a construal might be. Campus supporters of Palestinian rights will also be subject to closer scrutiny as the investigation proceeds, and perhaps find it harder to hold events and draw an audience. The goal of the bullying strategy will thus be achieved. Other campuses where investigations are underway will be similarly affected.

An expedited process for handling Title VI complaints of this kind is long overdue. Instead of accepting new complaints that mirror the bogus complaints that have been rejected again and again—complaints that point to nothing but clear instances of free speech and offer no credible evidence of harassment or discrimination—the OCR should quickly review and summarily reject these frivolous complaints as attacks on free speech that impede everyone’s ability to learn.

Real discrimination is of course intolerable and calls for corrective action. Students should never suffer discrimination or harassment based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin. That’s the problem Title VI was meant to address. For this purpose, it remains a valuable tool.

But the law can also be misused, as partisans of Israel have done, to protect Israel from criticism and stifle pro-Palestinian voices. This isn’t ultimately about the safety of Jewish students, many of whom are already critical of Israel and Zionism. It is, rather, about keeping the ideologies that sustain oppressive social arrangements safe from the corrosive effects of critical education. To keep this liberatory possibility alive, we should resist threats to free speech, and be especially wary when they are disguised as efforts to fight discrimination.

Michael Schwalbe

“It’s Israel’s way of intimidating and controlling news,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley | –

( Commondreams.org ) – CNN has long been criticized by media analysts and journalists for its deference to the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces in its coverage of the occupied Palestinian territories, and the cable network admitted Thursday that it follows a protocol that could give Israeli censors influence over its stories.

A spokesperson for the network confirmed to The Intercept that its news coverage about Israel and Palestine is run through and reviewed by the CNN Jerusalem bureau—which is subject to the IDF’s censor.

The censor restricts foreign news outlets from reporting on certain subjects of its choosing and outright censors articles or news segments if they don’t meet its guidelines.

Other news organizations often avoid the censor by reporting certain stories about the region through their news desks outside of Israel, The Intercept reported.

“The policy of running stories about Israel or the Palestinians past the Jerusalem bureau has been in place for years,” the spokesperson told the outlet. “It is simply down to the fact that there are many unique and complex local nuances that warrant extra scrutiny to make sure our reporting is as precise and accurate as possible.”

The spokesperson added that CNN does not share news copy with the censor and called the network’s interactions with the IDF “minimal.”

But James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, said the IDF’s approach to censoring media outlets is “Israel’s way of intimidating and controlling news.”

A CNN staffer who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity confirmed that the network’s longtime relationship with the censor has ensured CNN‘s coverage of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and attacks in the West Bank since October 7 favors Israel’s narratives.

“CNN’s Jeremy Diamond points toward Israeli military hardware in a field near Israel’s border with Gaza.
(Photo: screenshot/CNN)

“Every single Israel-Palestine-related line for reporting must seek approval from the [Jerusalem] bureau—or, when the bureau is not
staffed, from a select few handpicked by the bureau and senior management—from which lines are most often edited with a very specific nuance,” the staffer said.

Jerusalem bureau chief Richard Greene announced it had expanded its review team to include editors outside of Israel, calling the new policy “Jerusalem SecondEyes.” The expanded review process was ostensibly put in place to bring “more expert eyes” to CNN‘s reporting particularly when the Jerusalem news desk is not staffed.

In practice, the staff member told The Intercept, “‘War-crime’ and ‘genocide’ are taboo words. Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as ‘blasts’ attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed.”

Meanwhile, reporters are under intensifying pressure to question anything they learn from Palestinian sources, including casualty statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health is run by Hamas, which controls Gaza’s government. The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said in October, as U.S. President Joe Biden was publicly questioning the accuracy of the ministry’s reporting on deaths and injuries, that its casualty statistics have “proven consistently credible in the past.”

Despite this, CNN‘s senior director of news standards and practices, David Lindsey, told journalists in a November 2 memo that “Hamas representatives are engaging in inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda… We should be careful not to give it a platform.”

Another email sent in October suggested that the network aimed to present the Ministry of Health’s casualty figures as questionable, with the News Standards and Practices division telling staffers, “Hamas controls the government in Gaza and we should describe the Ministry of Health as ‘Hamas-controlled’ whenever we are referring to casualty statistics or other claims related to the present conflict.”

Newsroom employees were advised to “remind our audiences of the immediate cause of this current conflict, namely the Hamas attack and mass murder and kidnap of Israeli civilians” on October 7.

At least 22,600 people have been confirmed killed in Gaza and 57,910 have been wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. Thousands more are feared dead under the rubble left behind by airstrikes. In Israel, the death toll from Hamas’ attack stands at 1,139.

Jim Naureckas, editor of the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, noted that the Israeli government is controlling journalists’ reporting on Gaza as it’s been “credibly accused of singling out journalists for violent attacks in order to suppress information.”

“To give that government a heightened role in deciding what is news and what isn’t news is really disturbing,” he told The Intercept.

Meanwhile, pointed out author and academic Sunny Singh, even outside CNN, “every bit of reporting on Gaza in Western media outlets has been given unmerited weight which not granted to Palestinian reporters.”

“Western media—not just CNN—has been pushing Israeli propaganda all through” Israel’s attacks, said Singh.

( Commondreams.org ) – The United States health care system—more costly than any on earth—will become ever more so as Wall Street increasingly extracts money from it.

Private equity funds own approximately 9% of all private hospitals and 30% of all proprietary for-profit hospitals, including 34% that serve rural populations. They’ve also bought up nursing homes and doctors’ practices and are investing more year by year. The net impact? Medical costs to the government and to patients have gone up while patients have suffered more adverse medical results, according to two current studies.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently published a paper which found:

Private equity acquisition was associated with increased hospital-acquired adverse events, including falls and central line–associated bloodstream infections, along with a larger but less statistically precise increase in surgical site infections.

This should not come as a surprise. Private equity firms in general operate as follows: They raise funds from investors to purchase enterprises using as much borrowed money as possible. That debt does not fall on the private equity firm or its investors, however. Instead, all of it is placed on the books of the purchased entity. If a private equity firm borrows money and buys up a nursing home or hospital chain, the debt goes on the books of these healthcare facilities in what is called a leveraged buyout.

To service the debt, the enterprise’s management, directed by their private equity ownership, must reduce costs, and increase its cash flow. The first and easiest way to reduce costs is by reducing the number of staff and by decreasing services. Of course, the quality of care then suffers. Meanwhile, the private equity firm charges the company fees in order to secure its own profits.

With so much taxpayer money sloshing around in the system, hedge funds also are cashing in.

An even larger study of private equity and health was completed this summer and published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). After reviewing 1,778 studies it concluded that after private equity firms purchased healthcare facilities, health outcomes deteriorated, costs to patients or payers increased, and overall quality declined.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

One former executive at a private equity firm that owns an assisted-living facility near Boulder, Colorado, candidly described why the firm was refusing to hire and retain high-quality caregivers: “Their position was: We are trying to increase our profitability. Care is an ancillary part of the conversation.”

Medicare Advantage Creates Wall Street Advantages

Congress passed the Medicare Advantage program in 2003. Its proponents claimed it would encourage competition and greater efficiency in the provision of health insurance for seniors. At the time, privatization was all the rage as the Democratic and Republican parties competed to please Wall Street donors. It was argued that Medicare, which was actually much more efficient than private insurance companies, needed the iron fist of profit-making to improve its services. These new private plans were permitted to compete with Medicare Part C (Medigap) supplemental insurance.

In 2007, 19% of Medicare recipients enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. By 2023 enrollment had risen to 51%. These heavily marketed plans are attractive because many don’t charge additional monthly premiums, and they often include dental, vision, and hearing coverage, which Medicare does not. And in some plans, other perks get thrown in, like gym memberships and preloaded over-the-counter debit cards for use in pharmacies for health items.

How is it possible for Medical Advantage to do all this and still make a profit?

According to a report by the Physicians for a National Health Program, it’s very simple—they overcharge the government, that is we, the taxpayers, “by a minimum of $88 billion per year.” The report says it could be as much as $140 billion.

In addition to inflating their bills to the government, these HMO plans don’t pay doctors outside of their networks, deny or slow needed coverage to patients, and delay legitimate payments. As Dr. Kenneth Williams, CEO of Alliance HealthCare, said of Medicare Advantage plans, “They don’t want to reimburse for anything — deny, deny, deny. They are taking over Medicare and they are taking advantage of elderly patients.”

Enter Hedge Funds

With so much taxpayer money sloshing around in the system, hedge funds also are cashing in. They have bought large quantities of stock in the healthcare companies that are milking the government through their Medicare Advantage programs. They then insist that these healthcare companies initiate stock buybacks, inflating the price of their stock and the financial return to the hedge funds. Stock buybacks are a simple way to transfer corporate money to the largest stock-sellers.

(A stock buyback is when a corporation repurchases its own stock. The stock price invariably goes up because the company’s earnings are spread over a smaller number of shares. Until they were deregulated in 1982, stock buybacks were essentially outlawed because they were considered a form of stock price manipulation.)

United Healthcare, for example, is the largest player in the Medicare Advantage market, accounting for 29% of all enrollments in 2023. It also has handsomely rewarded its hedge fund stock-sellers to the tune of $45 billion in stock buybacks since 2007, with a third of that coming since March 2020. Cigna, another big Medicare Advantage player, just announced a $10 billion stock buyback.

These repurchases are also extremely lucrative for United Healthcare’s top executives, who receive most of their compensation through stock incentives. CEO Andrew Witty, for example, hauled in $20.9 million in 2022 compensation, of which $16.4 million came from stock and stock option awards.

Those of us fighting for Medicare for All have much in common with every worker who is losing his or her job as a result of leveraged buyouts and stock buybacks.

A look at the pharmaceutical industry shows where all this is heading. Between 2012 and 2021, fourteen of the largest publicly traded pharmaceutical companies spent $747 billion on stock buybacks and dividends, more than the $660 billion they spent on research and development, according to a report by economists William Lazonick and Öner Tulum. Little wonder that drug prices are astronomically high in the U.S.

And so, the gravy train is loaded and rolling, delivering our tax dollars via Medicare Advantage reimbursements to companies like United Healthcare and Big Pharma, which pass it on to Wall Street private equity firms and hedge funds.

It’s Not Just Healthcare

In researching my book, Wall Street’s War on Workers, we found that private equity firms and hedge funds are undermining the working class through leveraged buyouts and stock buybacks. When private equity moves in, mass layoffs (just like healthcare staff cuts and shortages) almost always follow so that the companies can service their debt and private equity can extract profits. When hedge funds insist on stock repurchases, mass layoffs are used to free up cash in order to buy back their shares. As a result, between 1996 and today, we estimate that more than 30 million workers have gone through mass layoffs.

Meanwhile, stock buybacks have metastasized throughout the economy. In 1982, before deregulation, only about 2% of all corporate profits went to stock buybacks. Today, it is nearly 70%.

Those of us fighting for Medicare for All, therefore, have much in common with every worker who is losing his or her job as a result of leveraged buyouts and stock buybacks. Every fight to stop a mass layoff is a fight against the same Wall Street forces that are attacking Medicare and trying to privatize it. Creating a sane healthcare system, therefore, will depend on building a massive common movement to free our economy from Wall Street’s wealth extraction.

To take the wind out of Medicare Advantage and Wall Street’s rapacious sail through our healthcare system, we don’t need more studies. It’s time to outlaw leveraged buyouts and stock buybacks.

“Today’s McCarthyist tactic of manufacturing an antisemitism scare… turns the very real issue of Jewish safety into a pawn in a cynical political game to cover for Israel’s deeply unpopular policies with regard to Palestine.”

Jessica Corbett

( Commondreams.org) – “For the safety of Jews and Palestinians, stop weaponizing antisemitism.”

That’s the headline of a Friday op-ed from Bernie Steinberg, who was the executive director of Harvard Hillel from 1993 to 2010.

Harvard University is among many U.S. higher education institutions—including Brandeis University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Florida, and University of Pennsylvania (Penn)—embroiled in a battle over antisemitism amid what a growing number of world leaders and legal scholars call Israel’s “genocidal” war on the Gaza Strip.

Even before the Hamas-led attack on Israel 12 weeks ago sparked a U.S.-backed retaliatory war in which Israeli forces have killed more than 21,670 people in Gaza, including over 8,200 children, members and supporters of the Israeli government have used bad-faith claims of discrimination, hostility, or prejudice against Jews to defend policies and practices that have oppressed Palestinians for decades.

Since October 7, reports of antisemitism and Islamaphobia have soared. There have also been heightened efforts to conflate antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israel, with U.S. critics facing shuttered campus groups, lost jobs, congressional resolutions, and other consequences for daring to condemn the mass killing of Palestinian civilians.

Image by cplesley from Pixabay

Recalling his own experiences enduring antisemitism, including violent attacks, Steinberg wrote for a new Harvard Crimson opinion series:

As a leader in the Jewish community, I am particularly alarmed by today’s McCarthyist tactic of manufacturing an antisemitism scare, which, in effect, turns the very real issue of Jewish safety into a pawn in a cynical political game to cover for Israel’s deeply unpopular policies with regard to Palestine. (A recent poll found that 66% of all U.S. voters and 80% of Democratic voters desire an end to Israel’s current war, for instance.)

What makes this trend particularly disturbing is the power differential: Billionaire donors and the politically connected, non-Jews and Jews alike on one side, targeting disproportionately people of vulnerable populations on the other, including students, untenured faculty, persons of color, Muslims, and, especially, Palestinian activists.

“In most cases, it takes the form of bullying pro-Palestine organizers. In others, these campaigns persecute anyone who simply doesn’t show due deference to the bullies,” Steinberg wrote of current trends on campuses. He noted the effort to smear Harvard’s new president and warned that “the toppling of the president of the University of Pennsylvania is a sobering example of what can happen when we empower these unscrupulous forces to dictate our path as university leaders.”

Founded a century ago, Hillel International calls itself “the world’s largest and most inclusive Jewish campus organization,” operating at 850 campuses in 16 countries. The ex-Hillel leader wrote to Jews at Harvard that “I know that it’s alienating and hurtful to so many of you when campus Jewish organizations, like Hillel and Chabad, take positions that exclude your voices. To those students, I say: The Jewish tradition is much deeper than any organization. No one has a monopoly on Judaism.”

Steinberg, who lived in Jerusalem for 13 years, urged Harvard’s Jewish students to “continue to learn Torah, Jewish history, and our ethical traditions,” and to “be boldly critical of Israel—not despite being Jewish, but because you are.”

“I know what antisemitism looks like and I do not take the issue of violence against Jews lightly. I have monitored, with vigilance, the kinds of speech that Israel-aligned parties are calling ‘antisemitic,’ and it simply does not pass the sniff test,” he argued. “Let me speak plainly: It is not antisemitic to demand justice for all Palestinians living in their ancestral lands.”

“The activists who employ this language, and the politics of liberation, are sincere people; their cause is a legitimate and important movement dissenting against the brutal treatment of Palestinians that has been ongoing for 75 years,” he stressed. “One can disagree with any part of what these activists say, but they must be allowed to speak safely and afforded the respect their morally serious position deserves.”

Steinberg added that “it is very telling that some of Israel’s own supporters instead go to extraordinary lengths to utterly silence the other side. Smearing one’s opponents is rarely a tactic employed by those confident that justice is on their side.”

“Antisemitism in the U.S. is a real and dangerous phenomenon, most pressingly from the alt-right white supremacist politics that have become alarmingly mainstream since 2016,” he asserted. “To contend against these and other antisemitic forces with clarity and purpose, we must put aside all fabricated and weaponized charges of ‘antisemitism’ that serve to silence criticism of Israeli policy and its sponsors in the U.S.”

Steinberg’s op-ed was praised on social media as a “powerful,” “deeply considered,” “cogent,” “must-read piece.”

Rebecca Vilkomerson, a former Jewish Voice for Peace executive director now at Funding Freedom, said Saturday that “as someone who has felt disappointed and betrayed by mainstream Jewish institutions, including Hillel, for well over a decade (and yet plunged into an even deeper depression and rage by their response to genocide in Gaza), I felt deeply moved by this piece.”

Jessica Corbett

A Washington Post investigation found Israel’s evidence “falls short” of showing that Hamas used the facility as a command center.

By Jake Johnson | –

( Commondreams.org) – The Israeli military launched a deadly assault on Gaza’s largest hospital last month on the grounds that the facility concealed a sprawling Hamas command center.

But a detailed Washington Post investigation by By Louisa Loveluck, Evan Hill, Jonathan Baran, Jarrett Ley and Ellen Nakashima published Thursday found that the evidence Israel has presented in support of its claim “falls short” of demonstrating that Hamas used the al-Shifa Hospital Complex for any significant military operations.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who repeated the Israeli government’s claim about al-Shifa, has not released any evidence to support the assertions.

“The claims were remarkably specific—that five hospital buildings were directly involved in Hamas activities; that the buildings sat atop underground tunnels that were used by militants to direct rocket attacks and command fighters; and that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards,” the Post noted.

But the newspaper’s examination of material released by the Israel Defense Forces, satellite imagery, and open-source visuals did not turn up anything resembling the “concrete evidence” that the IDF promised.

“Turns out the Shifa hospital wasn’t a Hamas headquarters. Turns out the Israelis lied,” MSNBC‘s Mehdi Hasan wrote in response to the investigation. “Turns out the Biden administration and U.S. intelligence were wrong.”

“Who’d have guessed,” he added sarcastically. “Well, a lot of us.”

According to the Post:

• The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.
• None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network.
• There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.

Israel’s raids on al-Shifa sparked international alarm, with United Nations officials warning at the time that the IDF’s attack would put the lives of patients, healthcare workers, and displaced people at severe risk. Dozens of people—including several newborns—died during and following the IDF raids.

The Young Turks: “Probe Unveils NO Evidence That Al-Shifa Hospital Was Hamas Command Center”

Hospitals are protected under international law, with military attacks on them prohibited unless they are used to “commit an act harmful to the enemy.”

The Post‘s probe indicates that Israel has not produced nearly enough evidence to justify stripping al-Shifa of its protected status.

“Less than 24 hours after Israeli forces entered the complex, the IDF released video footage showing spokesman Jonathan Conricus walking through the radiology unit. Behind an MRI machine, he points out what he calls a ‘grab bag’ containing an AK-style rifle and an ammunition magazine,” the Post reported. “Photos released by the military later that day purported to show the full haul of weapons recovered at the hospital—about 12 AK-style rifles, in addition to magazines of ammunition and several grenades and bulletproof vests.”

“The Post was unable to independently verify to whom the weapons belonged or how they came to be inside the radiology unit,” the newspaper added.

The BBC also scrutinized the video footage released by the IDF and similarly concluded that the evidence didn’t match the Israeli government’s description of al-Shifa as an “operational command center for Hamas.”

The Post went on to analyze IDF visuals “showing the entrance to a tunnel shaft in a northeast corner of the hospital complex near the specialty surgery building,” which was seen as a potential sign of Hamas activity below al-Shifa.

But after mapping the path of the tunnel and comparing the tunnel routes to an IDF map purporting to detail Hamas’ command center infrastructure, the Post found that “none of the five buildings highlighted by the IDF appear to connect to the tunnels, and no evidence has been produced showing that the tunnels could be accessed from inside the hospital wards.”

“If you don’t end up finding what you said you were going to find, that justifies skepticism as to whether or not your assessment of military value in conducting the operation was legitimate,” Geoffrey Corn, a law professor at Texas Tech University and a former senior law of war adviser to the U.S. Army, told the Post. “It’s certainly not conclusive. The ultimate question is whether the assessment of military advantage was reasonable under the circumstances.”

Al-Shifa is one of a number of Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces have attacked since October as part of what one U.N. official described as the IDF’s “unrelenting war” on the territory’s healthcare system.

Just nine of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still functioning. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said Friday that northern Gaza currently has “no functional hospital.”

“WHO will keep striving to supply health facilities in northern Gaza. But without medicines and other essential needs, all patients will die slowly and painfully,” said Tedros. “More than ever, a humanitarian cease-fire is needed now to reinforce and restock remaining health facilities, deliver medical services needed by thousands of injured people and those needing other essential care, and, above all, to stop the bloodshed and death.”

To ensure you have good coverage for both current and unforeseeable health needs this open enrollment period, you should choose traditional Medicare.

Diane Archer

( Common Dreams ) – During this Medicare Open Enrollment period, ask yourself these seven questions. And, please know that you can always call the Medicare Rights Center at 1-800-333-4114 or your SHIP—State Health Insurance Assistance Program—for free, unbiased advice on any of your Medicare questions.

1. Q. What’s the biggest difference between traditional Medicare and a Medicare Advantage plan? To ensure you have good coverage for both current and unforeseeable health needs, you should enroll in traditional Medicare. In traditional Medicare, you and your doctor decide the care you need, with no prior approval. And, you have easy access to care from almost all doctors and hospitals in the United States with no incentive to stint on your care. In a Medicare Advantage plan, a corporate insurance company decides when you get care, often requiring you to get its approval first. Medicare Advantage plans also restrict access to physicians and too often second-guess your treating physicians, denying you needed care inappropriately. The less care the Medicare Advantage plan provides, the more the insurance company profits. You will pay more upfront in traditional Medicare if you don’t have Medicaid and need to buy supplemental coverage, but you are likely to spend a lot less out of pocket when you need costly care. Regardless of whether you stay in traditional Medicare or enroll in Medicare Advantage, you still need to pay your Part B premium.
2. Q. Should I trust an insurance agent’s advice about my Medicare options? No. Unfortunately, insurance agents are paid more to steer you away from traditional Medicare and into a Medicare Advantage plan, even if it does not meet your needs. While some insurance agents might be good, you can’t know whom to trust. Keep in mind that while Medicare Advantage plans tell you that they offer you extra benefits, you still need to pay your Part B premium, and extra benefits are often very limited and come with high out-of-pocket costs; be aware that many Medicare Advantage plans won’t cover as much necessary medical and hospital care as traditional Medicare. For free independent advice about your options, call the Medicare Rights Center at 1-800-333-4114 or a SHIP.
3. Q. Why can’t I rely on my friends or the government’s star-rating system to pick a good Medicare Advantage plan? Unlike traditional Medicare, which gives you easy access to the physicians and hospitals you use from everywhere in the U.S. and allows for continuity of care, you can’t count on a Medicare Advantage plan to cover your care from the healthcare providers listed in their network or to cover the medically necessary care that traditional Medicare covers. Even if your friends say they are happy with their Medicare Advantage plan right now, they are gambling with their healthcare. The government’s five-star rating system does not consider that some Medicare Advantage plans engage in widespread inappropriate delays and denials of care, and other Medicare Advantage plans engage in different bad acts that can endanger your health. So, while you should never sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan with a one, two, or three-star rating, Medicare Advantage plans with four and five-star ratings can have very high denial and delay rates.


Image by Coombesy from Pixabay

4. Q. If I’m enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, can I count on seeing the physicians listed in the network and lower costs? Unfortunately, provider networks in Medicare Advantage plans can change at any time and your out-of-pocket costs can be as high as $8,300 this year for in-network care alone. You can study the MA plan literature, and you can know your total out-of-pocket costs for in-network care. But, you cannot know whether the MA plan will refuse to cover the care you need or delay needed care for an extended period. This year alone, dozens of health systems have canceled their Medicare Advantage contracts, further restricting access to care for their patients in MA, because MA plans make it hard for them to give people needed care.
5. Q. Doesn’t the government make sure that Medicare Advantage plans deliver the same benefits as traditional Medicare? No. The government cannot protect you from Medicare Advantage bad actors. The insurers offering Medicare Advantage plans can decide you don’t need care when you clearly do, and there’s no one stopping them; they are largely unaccountable for their bad acts. In the last few years there have been multiple government and independent reports on insurance company bad acts in Medicare Advantage plans.
6. Q. If I join a Medicare Advantage plan, can I disenroll and switch to traditional Medicare? You can switch to traditional Medicare each annual open enrollment period. However, depending upon your situation, where you live, your income, your age, and more, you might not be able to get supplemental coverage to pick up your out-of-pocket costs and protect you from high costs. What’s worse, you could incur thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs in Medicare Advantage.
7. Q. If I have traditional Medicare and Medicaid, what should I do? If you have both Medicare and Medicaid, traditional Medicare covers virtually all your out-of-pocket costs. You will get much easier access to physicians and inpatient services in traditional Medicare than in a Medicare Advantage plan if you need costly healthcare services or have a complex condition.

Again, for free independent advice about your options, call the Medicare Rights Center at 1-800-333-4114 or a SHIP.