POLITICO Nightly: Congress’ Covid woes are straining relationships

 

BY ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN Chair Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and ranking member Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), left, listen to witnesses during a House Select Subcommittee hearing on the origins of COVID-19. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo TWO ROADS DIVERGED — Things are tense on Congress’ sole committee dedicated to investigating the government response to Covid-19. Despite a decade-long friendship between the panel’s top Democrat and Republican, hearings have devolved into accusations of conspiracy mongering and political malfeasance, members have demanded colleagues’ remarks be stricken from the record, and they’ve routinely put out press releases and open letters criticizing one another. Earlier this month, the committee’s Democrats and Republicans released competing reports about the origin of Covid-19, and Democratic staff told POLITICO they may continue to go their own way, drafting more of their own reports and holding “shadow hearings” to hit topics they feel are being ignored or misrepresented by their GOP colleagues. Amid the divisions and mounting acrimony, lawmakers in both parties and outside experts are lamenting that the U.S. could have taken an entirely different path for Covid oversight — a path several other countries are on today. The road not taken: Lawmakers in the House and Senate — Democrats and Republicans — pushed last year for an independent, nonpartisan panel to study the Covid-19 response. Supporters of the idea, modeled on the 9/11 Commission that identified a host of national security failures, argued recommendations from such a group would have greater credibility with a divided and skeptical public. But despite backing from lawmakers across the political spectrum — led by Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and New York Democrat Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand — the effort didn’t become a priority for either party’s leadership or the White House, and it fell by the wayside amid end-of-year negotiations in 2022. Supporters reintroduced their bill in May but there has been little movement since then. Jennifer Nuzzo, a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, says leaving the work to a partisan committee of lawmakers is dangerous for both public health and geopolitics. “What I see happening are splashy, contentious, argumentative hearings involving people who are not experts weighing in on what don’t seem like the highest priority topics — basically dancing on the graves of the people who lost their lives,” she said. “We need an honest and hard look that’s not about retribution or scoring political points.” In the UK, on the other hand, an independent commission led by a retired judge is holding public listening sessions, obtaining the communications of key government figures and digging into how political and economic fights around Brexit left the country unprepared for Covid. In Sweden, an independent “Corona Commission” made up of professors, faith leaders and retired government officials released a 1,700 page report last year detailing how the country’s no-lockdown strategy put the elderly in peril, among other policy failures. In New Zealand, the independent “Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned” is interviewing officials behind closed doors so that “people can be free and frank” and they have pledged to issue a report on “what could we do differently or better.” Georges Benjamin, the president of the American Public Health Association, who testified at the House Covid committee’s first event back in February, says those investigation models — unlike the U.S. version — are far more effective. “Their mission is to thoroughly understand the facts regardless of the political outcomes,” he said. “They only have the goal of protecting health and safety. And if there are sacred cows out there — things politicians or we in the public health field deeply believe in but are wrong about — so be it.” The U.S. is not alone, however, in leaving Covid oversight to lawmakers. Australia’s parliament created a Senate committee to investigate the pandemic response, and while it included members of many different political parties, it was dominated by the ruling Labor Party. Members of other parties complained that the majority used it to advance its own political agenda, issuing their own dissenting reports (sound familiar?). Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at aollstein@politico.com or on Twitter at @AliceOllstein .   YOUR TICKET INSIDE THE GOLDEN STATE POLITICAL ARENA: California Playbook delivers the latest intel, buzzy scoops and exclusive coverage from Sacramento and Los Angeles to Silicon Valley and across the state. Don't miss out on the daily must-read for political aficionados and professionals with an outsized interest in California politics, policy and power. Subscribe today.     WHAT'D I MISS? — John Eastman, awaiting potential indictment, asks judge to postpone his disbarment proceedings: Attorney John Eastman, an architect of Donald Trump’s last-ditch efforts to subvert the 2020 election, is asking a California judge to postpone disbarment proceedings lodged against him , saying he’s increasingly concerned he’s about to be criminally charged by special counsel Jack Smith. “[R]ecent developments in the investigation have renewed and intensified [Eastman’s] concerns that the federal government might bring charges against him,” his attorneys Randall Miller and Zachary Mayer wrote in an Aug. 4 filing posted to the court’s public docket today. — Amazon called into final FTC meetings ahead of expected antitrust suit: Amazon officials have been called into meetings next week with commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission , marking what is almost certainly the final step before the agency files a long-expected antitrust lawsuit against the e-commerce giant. According to two people with knowledge of discussions between Amazon and the FTC, Amazon officials will meet with each of the FTC’s three commissioners during the week of Aug. 14. Amazon and the FTC declined to comment. — Trump and his new lawyer are not on the same page about judge’s recusal: Donald Trump blared Sunday morning that his legal team would be “immediately asking for recusal” of U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan from his latest criminal case, proclaiming (but not revealing) “very powerful grounds” for the demand. Hours later, his attorney John Lauro would publicly walk back that plan , saying Trump was speaking with a “layman’s political sense” and reacting primarily because Chutkan was nominated to the bench by a Democrat. (She was confirmed 95-0 by the Senate in 2014 after Barack Obama nominated her). NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 HEAD ON — After three years of not answering the question directly, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a newly posted interview with NBC News, said point blank about former President Donald Trump : “Of course he lost. Joe Biden’s the president.” “I think what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think it was a good-run election. But I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening.” And during a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday, DeSantis was asked if he thought the election was stolen, as asserted by Trump and his supporters. “I’ve said many times, the election is what it is. All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true,” he responded. BRANDING BIDEN — President Joe Biden is risking a lot on “Bidenomics.” But, about two months in, his efforts to sell his sweeping economic agenda don’t appear to be working , reports POLITICO’s Jennifer Haberkorn. Poll numbers show persistent voter skepticism about the state of the economy, and Republicans are working aggressively to take back the term, dubbing it as synonymous with tax hikes and inflation. Inside the White House, aides remain confident the bet will pay off, adopting the mantra of the hockey legend Wayne Gretzky: Skate to where the puck is going, not where it is now. “If you look at where the puck’s going to be a year from now,” said a White House official granted anonymity to discuss strategy, “inflation’s going down and the term “Bidenomics” is going to come to signify … President Biden has a plan. They may not be able to list every single thing in that plan, but it’s more factories, it’s more jobs, it’s prescription drug costs cut.” There is a long-held theory in certain quarters of the Democratic Party that candidates shouldn’t tout how good things are in the midst of an economic recovery, lest those still struggling feel left behind. Biden and his team haven’t fully abandoned such caution. But they’re not living by it either. The administration has moved aggressively to not just claim ownership of the economy, but to broadcast how good the news around it is: from falling inflation, to steady job growth, to diminished talk of a forthcoming recession. They anticipate the good news will ramp up with factory groundbreakings and bridge ribbon cuttings at the heart of the Inflation Reduction Act, bipartisan infrastructure law and CHIPs and Science Act. As the economy continues to improve, they believe, voters will start crediting them for “Bidenomics’” most popular items and general economic improvement. AROUND THE WORLD Socialist Workers' Party leader and current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, center, applauds during an executive committee meeting in Madrid, Spain. | Manu Fernandez/AP Photos CHANGE OF PLANS — Spain’s far-right Vox party on Sunday backed down from its long-held position on being included in any national government requiring its support, saying it’s willing to back a minority government headed by the center-right Popular Party even if a future cabinet doesn’t include any of its members, writes Aitor Hernández-Morales . In a statement, the group said its deep concern over Socialist Pedro Sánchez’s plans to remain Spain’s prime minister had led it to revise its position and offer the unconditional support of its 33 MPs to conservative leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who needs a simple majority in the country’s parliament to back his bid to form a government. Vox’s new position could theoretically make it easier for Feijóo to convince at least one party to back his bid to form a government: Last week Cristina Valido, the sole MP representing the Canarian Coalition group, said she was willing to support the Popular Party if its future executive did not include any far-right politicians. But it’s highly unlikely the shift will lead any of the other groups in the parliament — the majority of which have either left-wing or separatist platforms — to back the conservative leader. Feijóo therefore continues to fall short of the numbers needed to become prime minister. To form a government, a candidate selected by Spain’s king must be backed by either 176 of the 350 MPs in the Spanish parliament in an initial vote, or receive more “yeas” than “nays” in a second vote held 48 hours later. PLANS FOILED — Ukraine’s security service said today it had detained a Russian informant who planned to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month, writes Laura Hülsemann . The alleged informant “was preparing a Russian airstrike in the Mykolaiv region during the visit of the president of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said. The woman was “gathering intelligence” about the “the time and list of locations of the approximate route” of Zelenskyy’s visit to Mykolaiv at the end of July. Based on the information, a “massive” Russian airstrike would have assassinated Zelenskyy, the SBU said.   A NEW PODCAST FROM POLITICO: Our new POLITICO Tech podcast is your daily download on the disruption that technology is bringing to politics and policy around the world. From AI and the metaverse to disinformation and cybersecurity, POLITICO Tech explores how today’s technology is shaping our world — and driving the policy decisions, innovations and industries that will matter tomorrow. SUBSCRIBE AND START LISTENING TODAY .     NIGHTLY NUMBER 500 500 — The number of male asylum seekers that the United Kingdom is moving onto the Bibby Stockholm , a barge that will serve as a floating hostel as authorities seek to reduce the number of asylum-seekers housed in expensive hotel rooms that were requisitioned on an emergency basis. The Bibby Stockholm is moored in Portland Port on the south coast of England, where some locals have opposed the plan because of concern about the impact on the small surrounding community, which already has a shortage of medical services and is connected to the mainland by a single road. RADAR SWEEP OFF THE ROAD — Dead and Company — the longest running Grateful Dead touring company since the death of founding member Jerry Garcia — is purportedly getting off the road for good . The band, which has existed in different iterations since 1965, both helped to usher in new styles of performance and is rare in its ability to draw huge crowds for its fairly idiosyncratic brand of music. It’s also become an American institution that is now changing dramatically, as Dead and Company relies on the live experience to make its biggest mark. To chronicle the end of this project (at least for now), Sadie Sartini Garner went to their final shows in San Francisco and came back with a meditation on the band’s project for The Ringer. PARTING IMAGE On this date in 1974: French aerialist Philippe Petit walks on a cable suspended between the not-yet-completed twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. After rigging a wire across the 140-foot gap during the night, Petit, 25, stepped onto the cable at 7 a.m. with his balancing pole and walked back and forth as a crowd watched from the streets below. | AP Photo Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong   FOLLOW US

POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

POLITICO NIGHTLY: All eyes on the Manhattan DA

 

BY CALDER MCHUGH Presented by Action Now Initiative With additional reporting from Joanne Kenen Police officers move barricades near the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse ahead of former President Donald Trump's anticipated indictment. | Wesley Parnell for POLITICO INDICTMENT WATCH — No former president has ever been charged with a crime. But a grand jury indictment of former President Donald Trump could break that streak this week. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is expected to bring a criminal charge against Trump for his involvement with a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Law enforcement officials from the NYPD and U.S. Secret Service, along with other court officials, met this afternoon at NYPD headquarters to game plan for the politically charged indictment, according to POLITICO reporting . Trump will be finger-printed and his mug shot will be taken, though he won’t have a “perp walk” and may not be handcuffed. After Trump called for protests in New York on Saturday on Truth Social, the NYPD today erected steel barricades outside Manhattan Criminal Court. The indictment is expected on Wednesday evening. In the run-up to the expected indictment, Trump allies in the House GOP attacked Bragg’s motivations for pursuing legal action against the former president. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) called on Bragg to testify in front of Congress (though if the House Judiciary does subpoena Bragg, it’s unlikely he’d show up to answer questions). “This is a Soros-backed, crazy, left-wing prosecutor … and he is doing this purely political sham,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told POLITICO Playbook. Liberal billionaire George Soros’ Color of Change PAC donated at least $500,000 to Bragg’s 2021 election campaign, as part of an effort to elect progressive district attorneys around the country who want to end mass incarceration. The situation is complicated by Trump’s 2024 election campaign. There is widespread debate over whether the legal jeopardy will help Trump’s chances in a GOP primary or hurt them , and his 2024 competitors are already feeling the pressure to weigh in. One likely 2024 rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has already been attacked by Trump allies for not jumping to his defense . DeSantis today argued, “I have no interest in getting involved in some type of manufactured circus by some Soros DA.” To learn more about the Manhattan DA and the situation on the ground, Nightly spoke with Julia Marsh , an editor for POLITICO New York and former City Hall bureau chief and legal correspondent for the New York Post. This conversation has been edited. Give readers some background on Bragg. Where does he come from? How did he win the Manhattan DA’s race in 2021? What has he done since he took office, and what has his reception been like? Alvin Bragg is a career prosecutor who got his start as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York before moving to the state attorney general’s office, where he served as a deputy chief. There, he brought lawsuits including one against the Donald J. Trump Foundation that concluded with Trump paying a $2 million settlement. He grew up in Harlem and still lives there. During the campaign for district attorney in 2021, he frequently talked about getting held up at gunpoint when he was a kid during the crack cocaine epidemic, and won a crowded Democratic primary with eight candidates largely on a message of progressive criminal justice reform policies. While that message resonated with largely liberal primary voters, Bragg’s so-called “Day 1 Memo” rolling out his plan to pull back on prosecutions — even reducing some felony charges, including commercial robberies — drew immediate criticism, including from the widow of a cop who was shot and killed during a police call in January, his first month on the job. The city’s new police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, also criticized his approach, leading to a sort of apology tour where Bragg promised to prosecute crimes including gun cases. This is all against a backdrop of continued rising crime in NYC. What about on the issue of Trump? Have his actions or comments indicated how aggressively he intends to pursue charges? And has his office diverged from his predecessors in terms of how they’ve handled the former president? Trump’s case was not a major issue during the campaign. During Bragg’s second month in office, two leading prosecutors on the Trump case resigned following reports that Bragg didn’t believe they had enough evidence to charge the former president. But by December, Bragg had secured a conviction against the Trump Organization in a criminal tax fraud trial. A month later, former Trump Org. executive Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in jail and five years of probation after pleading guilty to a tax fraud scheme. What preparations is the city or Bragg’s office now undertaking before a potential indictment? POLITICO reported that the NYPD convened a meeting at its lower Manhattan headquarters this afternoon with the DA’s office, U.S. Secret Service and court officials to plan for security around the potential indictment. Already today there are additional police officers and court officers outside the courthouse and metal barricades have been installed. A Manhattan-based group called the New York Young Republicans Club is holding a protest today in lower Manhattan that they stressed would remain peaceful. What happens next? After he’s indicted and processed, what are next steps in this case? I expect it’ll be a little anticlimactic — likely they’ll just set a return court date on preliminary pre-trial issues. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh .   A message from Action Now Initiative: Protecting our seniors means protecting Medicare. Each year, big insurance companies abuse Medicare Advantage by overcharging seniors and taxpayers by billions. Now, there is a proposal to crack down on fraud and waste by insurance companies in Medicare Advantage. It’s a start – but it’s not enough. We can’t afford to wait. We already know the price of a delay – $23 billion in 2023 alone. Congress: Stop fraud and abuse. Protect our seniors and their benefits.   FROM THE HEALTH DESK 'OVERPOLICED AND UNDERPROTECTED' — Last summer, an editor at POLITICO Magazine gave me a great offer, writes Nightly contributor Joanne Kenen , the Commonwealth Fund Journalist in Residence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Write a deep dive piece about a topic in women’s health that doesn’t get a lot of attention. I chose domestic violence. And yes, it’s a health problem, not just a law enforcement problem . And the health system — doctors, nurses, hospitals and clinics as well as the public health system — do a pretty lousy job of detecting abuse, and addressing survivors’ physical, emotional, legal and financial needs. Domestic violence is a leading cause – some experts told me it’s the leading cause — of homelessness among women. Since writing that piece, I’ve had a chancex to talk again with some of the women I interviewed last summer. And this month I’ve moderated two sessions on it at conferences — one was part of a full day meeting on this topic held at the USC Annenberg School’s Center on Health Reporting. I learned a lot more, some of it quite shocking. All those stories you’ve been seeing about the maternal mortality crisis (which is particularly severe among Black women, of all economic strata)? It’s even worse than you heard. That’s because many states don’t include homicide, suicide or overdose in their maternal mortality figures — even though pregnancy and post-partum are high risk, including for murder. Maternal mortality deaths from hemorrhage, infection and that kind of thing are reviewed by OB/GYN panels — but those doctors aren’t experts in homicide so they just don’t count them, Jacquelyn Campbell, a national expert in intimate partner violence at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing told me. Similar percentages of men and women report some form of domestic violence — but the really serious physical harm and homicide is overwhelmingly women. Many states — in fact, most states — don’t require judges to have any kind of training in domestic violence, even though these cases end up in their courts and they are extraordinarily fraught and complicated, often involving kids. And — this is less surprising, but still worse than I thought — not only does the law enforcement system blame the victim, it sometimes incarcerates her. Survivors are “overpoliced and underprotected,” as one conference speaker put it. They are at risk of eviction, because their abusive partner wasn’t on the lease, or because the woman called 911 so often that she was a “nuisance” (which Matthew Desmond wrote about in “Evicted,” a 2016 book that follows eight families struggling to pay rent during the 2008 financial crisis). Their kids get taken away because they are exposed to violence. “The system,” said Krista Colon of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, “doesn’t treat it as a crime.”   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING : What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today .     WHAT'D I MISS? — Biden issues first veto: President Joe Biden vetoed his first bill earlier today, blocking the repeal of a Labor Department rule that permitted retirement investing tied to environmental and social goals . The veto was expected, after the Biden administration fought Republican-led efforts to pass the rollback three weeks ago. The House and Senate votes attracted support from three Democrats, including Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — moderates who are up for reelection next year. — Four more Oath Keepers convicted of Jan. 6 felonies: Four more members of the Oath Keepers were convicted this afternoon of conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ Jan. 6 proceedings , bringing the number of members of the group found guilty by juries of felonies related to the Capitol attack to more than a dozen. Jurors found Sandra Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs and William Isaacs each guilty of the most significant charges they faced: conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ proceedings, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to prevent a federal officer from discharging duties. — Biden will release Covid-19 origin intelligence: Biden signed into law today a bill to declassify intelligence on the origins of Covid-19 , offering the public a chance to review information that government agencies say is inconclusive. The legislation, called the Covid-19 Origin Act of 2023, which passed the Senate and House with unanimous support earlier this month, orders the Director of National Intelligence to declassify within 90 days of enactment all information relating to potential links between China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology and Covid-19. The director is then to submit the information in a report to Congress.   A message from Action Now Initiative:     NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 FIELD GUIDE — The 2024 Republican presidential field is far from set. But POLITICO’s Steve Shepard is already handicapping the candidates: who’s in, who’s out, how they’ll win, how they’ll lose . FINE LINE — As a Republican candidate for president, Nikki Haley introduces herself as the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. She says that it’s time for a new generation of leaders and that the best way to accomplish that is to put a “badass woman” in the White House. At the same time, Haley has underscored that she does not believe there are “glass ceilings” limiting women. She rejects identity politics as a form of divisiveness and “woke self-loathing.” As she campaigns nationwide, she is at once seeking to accentuate her differences from white male candidates and offer reassurances that they are not impediments to achieving success, the Washington Post reports . AROUND THE WORLD Far-left lawmakers hold papers reading: "64 years. It is no," "appointment in the street," "we are continuing," at the National Assembly in Paris. | Lewis Joly/AP Photo SKIN OF HIS TEETH — Emmanuel Macron’s government survived a no-confidence vote in the French parliament earlier in the afternoon , after it pushed through a deeply unpopular pensions overhaul without a vote last week, writes Clea Caulcutt . In a high-stakes vote in France’s lower house of parliament, 277 MPs, mostly from the left and the far right, voted in favor of a cross-party motion of no confidence, falling short of the 287 votes needed to topple the government. A second motion, backed only by the far-right National Rally, is not expected to garner enough votes. The motions of no confidence were proposed last week after Macron authorized the use of a controversial constitutional maneuver on Thursday to bypass a vote in parliament on his pensions reform bill. The National Assembly vote came as industrial action disrupted flights, public transport, waste collection and refineries ahead of a nationwide day of protests on Thursday. Trade union leaders hope for a show of force against the government and have also warned that social unrest risks spiraling after several protests in Paris turned violent in recent days.   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS – DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID .     NIGHTLY NUMBER 27,000 The total number of layoffs from the tech giant Amazon.com in the first few months of 2023. Amazon announced plans to eliminate 9,000 more jobs in a company memo this morning, the second largest round of layoffs in the company’s history, adding to the 18,000 employees they said would be laid off in January. Amazon’s workforce doubled during the onset of Covid-19, but consumer demand for certain tech services slowed as the worst of the pandemic eased. RADAR SWEEP WE’RE CALLING IT SOCCER — Ted Lasso is a television character who found his origins in a marketing stunt a decade ago — an attempt by NBC to get Americans to watch more soccer in Europe by introducing the idea of a doofy American college football coach attempting to coach an English soccer team. The concept was successful enough that it turned into a show, which is on its third season and has been a runaway hit, wracking up Emmys. The cast was at the White House today to discuss mental health, a significant focus for the show. But as “Ted Lasso” draws up feel-good narratives about sports, it has spawned imitators outside of the strictly fiction space. There has been a boom in sports documentaries that have portrayed players, franchises and even leagues through the lens of the feel-good. Unfortunately, the sporting world isn’t entirely like that. It’s often ruled by corruption and greed. Alex Shepard reports for The New Republic on what this show and its emulators miss about the cruel world of international sports. PARTING IMAGE On this day in 1956: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. greets friends in the Montgomery Courthouse as he arrived for the second day of his trial on a charge of violating Alabama's anti-boycott law in connection with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. | Gene Herrick/AP Photo Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   A message from Action Now Initiative: Insurance company fraud and abuse in Medicare Advantage costs seniors and taxpayers billions.  Medicare Advantage plans ensure seniors have a choice of health coverage options. But many federal lawsuits, audits, and investigations have proven that big insurance companies offering Medicare Advantage plans have systematically overcharged seniors and taxpayers by billions of dollars each year. MedPAC estimates that insurers’ abusive billing practices will cost taxpayers $23 billion in 2023 alone. Now, there’s a proposal to start cracking down on insurance company overcharges in Medicare Advantage. It is an important first step, but it does not go far enough. We can’t afford to wait. We already know the price of a delay – $23 billion in taxpayer dollars projected this year. Congress: Stop the fraud and abuse in Medicare Advantage. Protect our seniors and their benefits.     Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong Ari Hawkins @_AriHawkins   FOLLOW US

POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA