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      aco reach

      U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about protecting Medicare

      No Amount of Fraud Deters Government Agencies When It Comes to Privatizing Medicare

      Sadly, getting the fraudsters out of ACO REACH will not improve a program designed to enrich corporations and harm patients. This entire apple cart needs to be overturned.

      Ana Malinow
      Kay Tillow
      Feb 01, 2023

      On January 17, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) announced 48 new model participants in a controversial pilot program called Accountable Care Organization: Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health, better known as ACO REACH. CMMI, created by the Affordable Care Act, is supposed to test alternative payment models for Traditional Medicare to lower costs and improve, or at least not worsen, the care of 30 million seniors and people with disabilities.

      The program, launched in the waning days of the Trump Administration as Direct Contracting, was greenlighted by the Biden Administration in 2021 and renamed ACO REACH in 2022. The model, which started with 53 contracting entities under Trump has grown to 132 participants with 131,772 health care practitioners and organizations providing care to over 2 million beneficiaries on Traditional Medicare under President Biden. Startling research found many of the ACO REACH participants have a history of Medicare fraud. Nevertheless, Medicare continues to sign contracts with them.

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      Opinion
      medicare
      U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra speaks at an event

      'Cancel This Failed Experiment': Physicians Tell Biden HHS to End Medicare Privatization Pilot

      The program "presents a threat to the integrity of traditional Medicare, and an opportunity for corporations to take money from taxpayers while denying care to beneficiaries," said Physicians for a National Health Program.

      Jake Johnson
      Jan 19, 2023

      A national physician group this week called for the complete termination of a Medicare privatization scheme that the Biden White House inherited from the Trump administration and later rebranded—while keeping intact its most dangerous components.

      Now known as the Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH) Model, the experiment inserts a for-profit entity between traditional Medicare beneficiaries and healthcare providers. The federal government pays the ACO REACH middlemen to cover patients' care while allowing them to pocket a significant chunk of the fee as profit.

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      News
      medicare privatization
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