Medicare's Private Option Is Gaining Popularity, and Critics

As more Americans sign up for Medicare Advantage, detractors worry that it’s helping private insurers more than patients.

By Mark Miller

Feb. 21, 2020


. . . “When we talk about Medicare for all or public options,” said Tricia Neuman, director of the Medicare policy program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, “people may not realize that we already have a Medicare program that is coming to be dominated by some very large private insurance companies.”

. . . The rise of Advantage has also been aided by changes in federal law and regulation in recent years. And under the Trump administration, critics say, Medicare’s administrators have been tipping the scales improperly in favor of Advantage.

. . . Under President Trump, some critics contend, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers Medicare, has become a cheerleader for Advantage plans at the expense of original Medicare.

. . . If the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is tipping the scales, it would be a violation of federal law, Mr. Lipschutz argued.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/business/medicare-advantage-retirement.html


Not good.

https://mississippitoday.org/2020/02/20/marshall-ramsey-bloombergs-debate/


Got that right.

https://twitter.com/damonbethea1/status/1229974458045288449

Nice catch, Damon.

Tonight on The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell said that since the NBC poll had "inexplicably" excluded Elizabeth in the match-up against Trump section, he would use the PBS poll instead and then put it up to see and went on with the show.

Problem was, nobody at MSNBC had noticed Klobuchar's picture where Warren's should have been. Or did they notice?

For now, I suspect some techbro with sympathies for another of a couple of possible candidates. I know, I know - it could have been an accident. Riiiiiiiight.

Bloomberg builds ‘massive’ Mississippi campaign as other 2020 Democrats focus elsewhere

By Adam Ganucheau

Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor and a billionaire with virtually unlimited capital to spend this cycle, has hired 24 full-time staffers in Mississippi, giving his campaign what several veteran political operatives say is the largest full-time staff of any presidential candidate in the state’s history. It is also one that would rival or exceed the largest statewide campaigns in the state’s history.

“The campaign that Michael Bloomberg is running throughout the country is unprecedented in scale and scope,” said Nathan Shrader, chair of the Department of Government and Politics at Millsaps College. “His campaign has flooded states such as Mississippi, which are often forgotten until the days prior to the primary election, with competent field organizers and advisers, advertising featuring persuasive messages and a data-driven approach designed to maximize their vote share.”

With three weeks until the March 10 primary, when the state’s 41 convention delegate votes are up for grabs, most presidential candidates have spent little money in Mississippi. Bloomberg, with a large investment in the state, is the exception.

While Bloomberg has nearly two dozen paid staffers in the state, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has two paid staffers, is the only Democratic contender with full-time employees working in the state. Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg have volunteers or surrogates in the state.

https://mississippitoday.org/2020/02/18/bloomberg-builds-massive-mississippi-campaign-as-other-2020-democrats-focus-elsewhere/


Right on. Make Republicans waste their campaign funds or risk disaster.

https://www.usatoday.com/documents/6776860-Withdraw-as-Attorney/

"Lindsay, pitchfork populist • 37 minutes ago

There's been another apparently Barr-related resignation from the US attorney's office - Geoffrey Berman at SDNY.

Berman apparently got his way on indicting state-owned Turkish Halkbank, but has posted his resignation from the US Attorneys Office in a case involving the attempt to get Trump's WH visitor logs.

Information pieced together by me, a rank amateur, from tweets and a CNN article cited in one of the tweets."

https://twitter.com/eorden/status/1228695248580366336

https://twitter.com/big_cases/status/1228462812621660160


from Lindsay at Eschaton

https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/02/viva-la-resistance.html#comment-4797326322