In the windy, late morning of Saturday, December 11, 2021, Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care and community allies gathered outside the headquarters of Humana in downtown Louisville where they demanded an end to Medicare Direct Contracting Entities (DCEs), a program that could fully privatize Traditional fee-for-service Medicare without a vote by Congress.
Humana is one of 53 for-profit DCEs into which seniors who have chosen traditional Medicare can be placed without their consent. With poetry, protest, and music, they exposed the plot and called on everyone to take action.
Among the songs they sang...
DON’T PRIVATIZE OUR MEDICARE AWAY
(tune of “You Are My Sunshine”)
By Lee Stanfield for the Tucson Raging Grannies 12/08/21
(Starting note is G below Middle C)
We love our Med-icare , Tra-dish’-nal Med-icare,
the best health in-sur-ance to-day!
That’s why we’re he-ere to make it clea-ear...
“Don’t pri-va-tize our Med-i-care a-way!”
Liz Fow-ler’s I-i-nn-o-va-tion Cen-ter
is bus-y e-v’ry sin-gle day!
Be-hind closed do-ors they seek just one goal.
They’re pri-va-tiz-ing Med-i-care a-way!
De-mand that Bi-den re-place Liz Fow-ler
and end the D C Es to-day!
D C Es are just..... par-a-sit-ic midd-le-men
who’ll pri-va-tize our Med-i-care a-way!
We’re tired of pay-ing in-vest-or pro-fits
We know that there’s a bet-ter way!
Tax-pay-er mon-ey must not be wast-ed
Stop pri-vatizing Med-icare to-day!
The on-ly i-i-nn-o-va-tion need-ed
is Med-i-care to start to pay
very slow& deliberate-> the TO-TAL CO-OST of EV’RY MED-ICAL NEED
very slow& deliberate-> for EV’-RY PER-SON IN the U S A !!!
DON’T PRIVATIZE IT... SUPERSIZE IT...
MEDICARE FOR ALL WILL SAVE US TRILLIONS !!!
_______________________________________________
Save Medicare from Wall St.—Stop the DCEs!
There must be a public outcry, or we will lose Medicare. Under a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) program now underway, more than 30 million seniors who chose Traditional Medicare could be placed into largely investor-owned Direct Contracting Entities (“DCEs”) without the beneficiaries’ understanding or consent.
DCEs are another scheme to privatize Medicare. Like Medicare Advantage, the DCE program threatens Traditional Medicare, as well as a future public and nonprofit Medicare-for-All program.
• Tell Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to stop Direct Contracting Entities now!
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201
1-202-205-5445
• Call your member of Congress demanding a halt to DCEs! 1-202-224-3121
More info:
www.kyhealthcare.org
www.pnhp.org,
www.NationalSinglePayer.com
3 minute video by Ron Hargrove
