President Donald Trump on Thursday delivered a speech bashing Medicare for All with right-wing talking points and signed an executive order aimed at steering more elderly Americans into the arms of the private insurance industry.

Trump signed the executive order during an event Thursday afternoon at The Villages, a large retirement community in central Florida. Under the new order, the government will encourage patients to consider private Medicare Advantage plans as alternatives to traditional Medicare, which covers tens of millions of elderly Americans and people with disabilities. The directive would also expand supplemental benefits Medicare Advantage can offer.

Michael Lighty, an activist with the Democratic Socialists of America's Medicare for All campaign, said Medicare Advantage plans "are the worst and most accurate example how we pay the wrong way for healthcare."

"The healthcare industry loves them, too—they are the fastest growing, most profitable private health plans, which are heavily subsidized by taxpayers," Lighty told Common Dreams. "Compared to traditional Medicare, the Medicare Advantage plans cost more, and restrict access."

In a statement, Social Security Works president Nancy Altman called Medicare Advantage "a hustle designed to allow for-profit corporations to suck up public dollars."

"Medicare Advantage is stealth privatization intended to undermine traditional Medicare, which is an effective, popular government program and therefore loathed by Republican ideologues," said Altman. "Today's executive order is yet another giveaway to the corporations that run Medicare Advantage plans."

"Ironically," Altman added, "the Trump administration is framing the executive order as an attack on Medicare for All. In fact, the massive flaws of Medicare Advantage epitomize the need to get for-profit greed out of health care by improving Medicare and expanding it to cover all Americans."

As Trump parroted right-wing fearmongering about Medicare for All—such as the claim that it would lead to far longer wait times for care—consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said the public should not "be fooled by Trump's corporate-backed talking points."

K9s wrote: Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:18 pm Two Americas.

‘Out here, it’s just me’: In the medical desert of rural America, one doctor for 11,000 square miles

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

In the medical desert that has become rural America, nothing is more basic or more essential than access to doctors, but they are increasingly difficult to find. The federal government now designates nearly 80 percent of rural America as “medically underserved.” It is home to 20 percent of the U.S. population but fewer than 10 percent of its doctors, and that ratio is worsening each year because of what health experts refer to as “the gray wave.” Rural doctors are three years older than urban doctors on average, with half over 50 and more than a quarter beyond 60. Health officials predict the number of rural doctors will decline by 23 percent over the next decade as the number of urban doctors remains flat.

I spent couple of days in hospital last week (split between ER and admittance)