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Mar 16, 2021: Trump Plan to Privatize Medicare Still in Place
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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

A subtle policy left in place by the Trump administration could let private interests hack up Medicare even further unless the Biden Administration steps in.

Meanwhile, Europe’s wider vaccine rollout hits a major snag as new concerns over possible side-effects cause several nations to suspend use of the Astra Zeneca vaccine. Fortunately, the U.S. is mostly using Moderna and Pfizer.

And lastly, new data shows that Elon Musk’s defiant reopening of Tesla factories during the pandemic could have caused hundreds of coronavirus cases among his employees.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

We’ve known since well before the election that the first months, if not years of the Biden presidency will be defined by rooting out and undoing all the damage the Trump administration did in four years.

As the Center for Health Journalism reports, one policy that’s flying under the radar could spell trouble for Medicare recipients, as subtly-hidden Trump-era program promises to hand off more of the nation’s only centralized healthcare program to private interests.

The program is called the Geographic Direct Contracting Model, or Geo for short. Its goal is to cut costs for the government by putting Medicare patients on a semi-privatized managed care plan, rather than regular, government-run Medicare.

One source told the CHJ that the Geo programs are so subtle and complex that QUOTE “someone might not know they’re in one.” endquote.

But where they’ll feel it, often, is when they try to get medical care. The new model won’t necessarily raise out of pocket costs for the beneficiaries, but advocates worry that it could mean that complex health care becomes less accessible for people on the plans, similar to some of the problems people have faced on Medicare Advantage plans.

All of this adds up to a system that the CHJ said could quote “potentially turn every senior into a customer of a privately-run managed care organization.” Your everyday customer may not even notice, but the insurance companies and big healthcare corporations are the ones that will make a killing on this.

The big red flag is when this went into place: December 2020, right as Trump was on the way out. And due to the lack of media coverage of these small changes, advocates are worried that the Biden administration might drop the ball.

Diane Archer, the president of healthcare watchdog Just Care USA, wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams quote:

“It's bad policy, a government giveaway to Wall Street, and a betrayal of the most basic principles of Medicare. The Biden administration should immediately kill this toxic legacy of the former president."

Endquote.

Hopefully we’ll see some movement on this soon.

Europe Pauses AstraZeneca Rollout

Meanwhile, problems continue to plague Europe’s vaccine rollout. On Monday, Germany, France, Italy and Spain became the latest countries to suspend use of the Astra Zeneca vaccine after unconfirmed reports of patients experiencing blood clots.

Let’s be clear: the reports thus far aren’t backed up by any data or research yet, so they may be overblown. The company claims there’s no evidence of any link to an increased risk for blood clots. European authorities are doing a full assessment of the vaccine, but until that comes out they’ve paused its use.

The risk, however, is that any pause to Europe’s rollout could enhance the spread of several more infectious and potentially more deadly variants of the virus. These variants are in the U.S. as well, but scientists think our vaccine rollout is on pace to head off the worst of them.

The other big risk that European scientists want to avoid, is people refusing the vaccine after stories like this come out.

They’re probably figuring that a short pause while they accumulate better research is the best move, rather than pushing ahead with a jumpy population that needs to get inoculated fast.

This particular snag won’t hit the U.S., of course, as our primary vaccines are the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson ones, which thus far have been found to be overwhelmingly safe. Mississippi, for instance, became the second state to open vaccine eligibility to every adult on Monday.

Elon Musk Reopened Factories and His Workers Got Sick

Tech overlord Elon Musk has had a pretty active pandemic, pushing the limits of government regulators on a national and local level alike. But at least one of his brazen decisions could have come with some serious consequences for the people who work underneath him.

The Washington Post reports that Alameda County data shows that Tesla’s Bay Area production plant recorded hundreds of coronavirs cases following Musk’s defiant re-opening of the factory last May. Musk famously dared local officials to arrest him and re-opened facilities in defiance of stay-at-home orders early last year, and this is what he got.

The ​_Post_ ​reports that the data shows 450 reported cases among the plant’s 10,000 workers between May and December. That’s only 4.5 percent of the workers of course, but it shows exactly what acceptable casualties were for the richest man in the world.

Tesla was required to report its cases to the county, but the data stayed under wraps until it was unearthed by a legal transparency website earlier this year.

On Monday, Musk announced that he had official changed his job title at Tesla to, and I quote, “the Technoking of Tesla,” making his CFO the “master of coin” on official SEC filings. The guy clearly would rather make epic internet jokes than protect his workers, which is about what we should expect from him at this point.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Senate confirmed Deb Haaland, Joe Biden’s pick for Interior Secretary, by a 51 to 40 vote on Monday. Haaland was by far the most progressive pick for the post and will be the first Native interior secretary of the U.S.

The Washington Post reports that the fencing around the U.S. Capitol put up after the January 6 riots will start to come down and the National Guard presence will decrease in the coming weeks, after finding no quote “credible threat” against Congress. It only took, what, two full months since Inauguration for them to demilitarize the capitol?

CIA officials overseas are pissed at their superiors, the Intercept reports, after the U.S.’s lead spy agency vaccinated most of its Langley, Virginia staff in early January, while foreign bureaus are still trying to find supply of the vaccine for their members.

And finally, the Guardian reports that noted fascist Steve Bannon has finally lost a years-long legal battle to set up a right wing political academy in an 800-year-old church in Italy. Darn! Real bummer for the whole world on that one.

MAR 16, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn